Five New Planets: The Kepler Telescope's on a Roll

A NASA space telescope Kepler has discovered five planets outside of our solar system. NASA said the planets are dilapidated. Because, in these planets temperatures hotter than molten lava.

Borucki heads the Kepler Mission, a space-based planet-hunting telescope that went into solar orbit last spring to search for isolated worlds like our own. While the first five worlds detected are nothing like Earth, nobody expected them to be. What's important, Borucki declared, was that "these five new exoplanets come from the first six weeks of data." An additional eight months of Kepler observations are already in the can and awaiting analysis, meaning many more planets are undoubtedly lurking on hard drives at the NASA Ames Research Center in California, where Kepler is headquartered. "We're going home to lots of presents still unopened," says Natalie Batalha, a San Jose State University astronomer on the Kepler team. "These observations contribute to our understanding of how planetary systems form and evolve from the gas and dust disks that give rise to both the stars and their planets," alleged Borucki. "The discoveries also show that our science instrument is working well. Indications are that Kepler will meet all its science goals."

NASA launched the Kepler space telescope in March, 2009. The craft is on a six-year mission to find Earth-like planets and carrying a telescope and multiple computers. “NASA scientists expect Kepler to find large planets during its first several months in space” Kepler program manager James Fanson alleged Last year. “And in two to three years, the craft should begin to spot planets closer to the size of Earth” Fanson added.

The Kepler spacecraft is designed to study between 100,000 and 170,000 sunlike stars and find Earth-like planets orbiting them. The telescope onboard the spacecraft will measure the brightness of those stars every half hour, allowing scientists to detect any dimming that would be caused by orbiting planets passing in front of them.

Scientists anticipate to receive enough figures from Kepler to find out not only the size of a planet but to be able to detect whether it has a solid surface and if there's the potential for it to have water, which is crucial to the formation of life.

NASA reported this week that Kepler spotted its first five exoplanets, which are planets outside of our solar system.

The planets range in size from smaller than Neptune to larger than Jupiter. These exoplanets have temperatures reading between 2,200 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, according to NASA.

"It's gratifying to see the first Kepler discoveries rolling off the assembly line," alleged Jon Morse, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division. "We expected Jupiter-size planets in short orbits to be the first planets Kepler could detect. It's only a matter of time before more Kepler observations lead to smaller planets with longer period orbits, coming closer and closer to the discovery of the first Earth analog."