NASA Announces 11 New Planetary Systems Hosting 26 Confirmed Planets “In the past year astronomers have discovered smaller planets are more numerous and diverse than anyone has expected —“Searing hot planets with iron rain, atmospheres with 1,000 mile an hour winds, planetary systems with two suns, a planet that literally skims the surface of its star once every three months,” reports Dimitar Sasselov, professor of astronomy at Harvard University.
NASA’s Kepler mission’s recent discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form.“Prior to the Kepler mission, we knew of perhaps 500 exoplanets across the whole sky,” said Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Now, in just two years staring at a patch of sky not much bigger than your fist, Kepler has discovered more than 60 planets and more than 2,300 planet candidates. This tells us that our galaxy is positively loaded with planets of all sizes and orbits.” The planets orbit close to their host stars and range in size from 1.5 times the radius of Earth to larger than Jupiter.
Fifteen are between Earth and Neptune in size. Further observations will be required to determine which are rocky like Earth and which have thick gaseous atmospheres like Neptune. The planets orbit their host star once every six to 143 days. All are closer to their host star than Venus is to our sun. Kepler identifies planet candidates by repeatedly measuring the change in brightness of more than 150,000 stars to detect when a planet passes in front of the star. That passage casts a small shadow toward Earth and the Kepler spacecraft. ”
