NASA to launch planet hunting Kepler on March 6th

BenjAii

By far the most exciting thing in space exploration at the moment, is the hunt for Earth like exosolar planets.

That will take a big leap forward this year when NASA launch the Kepler space telescope dedicated purely to that.

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/11/137223

Even more exciting is a superior ESA telescope called Darwin, that will be able to obtain detail on the chemical makeup of exosolar planets atmospheres. It should be able to detect water, oxygen, carbon dioxide and methane in distant planets.

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/120382_index_0_m.html

Sadly it doesn't have a definite launch date, but its exciting to think that when it does it will bring us a step closer to answering the question; is there life in other parts of the universe ?

Thanks for the info, will definitely have to watch this space! (and space - forgive the pun! :pac:)

Svenolsen

Nice image here of the planet orbiting Fomalhaut:

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2008/39/image/a/format/web_print/

Its orbital movement from 2004 to 2006 is obvious (Tiny square expanded.) and it is almost certainly a compact Earth like object.
It would be nice to get a closer look at it.

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