NASA's new space telescope Kepler has discovered five odd fiery-hot planets in its epochal search for life-sustaining planets in the depths of the Milky Way, scientists reported Monday.
"One of the planets is amazingly light - like Styrofoam," said William J. Borucki, the astronomer from NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View who conceived the Kepler mission 25 years ago and now leads it.
"And all five simply glow," he said, "they're like looking into a blast furnace - but that's simply no place to look for life."
The five exoplanets, as they are known, are the first that scientists have detected from Kepler's signals, and they are evidence of the strange solar systems that may exist far beyond our own, the scientists say.
The newfound planets are far larger than Earth. The smallest is the size of Neptune, four times Earth's size, and the three biggest are much larger than Jupiter, which is 10 times the size of Earth.
Hot, hot planets
Two planets are hotter than molten lava at about 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, and the largest one, at nearly 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit, is hotter than molten iron.
NASA scientists described Kepler's findings Monday during a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington and briefed reporters by telephone. A detailed report on the findings will be published Thursday in the journal Science.
A network of nine major ground-based telescopes, from Hawaii to the Canary Islands, and including the Lick Observatory above San Jose, confirmed Kepler's discoveries.
Geoffrey Marcy of UC Berkeley, a member of the Kepler team, noted in an e-mail that the five new planets Borucki announced have all been measured with "exquisite detail about their sizes, masses and orbits."
He said he's enthusiastic about what scientists will learn by the time the Kepler mission is over.
"We are measuring the brightnesses of 100,000 stars with a precision of 20 parts per million, and this unprecedented accuracy will allow us to detect the dimming of any Earth-sized planet crossing in front of any of those 100,000 stars," Marcy wrote. "It's a rare moment in science when an historic discovery looms so tantalizingly close to our outstretched fingertips."
In its search for planets, Kepler is examining 150,000 stars, most of which are inactive and quiet. Natalie Batalha, a San Jose State University astronomer who studies the fierce energy variations among stars, predicted that Kepler's data "will revolutionize stellar seismology."
Early excitement
At Kepler's mission control center at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, planetary astronomer Jack Lissauer was also excited about the mission's early results.
"We're achieving the kind of precision we really need to detect true Earth analogues," Lissauer said in an interview. "And seeing that so many of those suns out there are so quiet will enable us to learn much more about the interior of the stars themselves."
Among the surprising Kepler findings since it was launched in March, he said, was the detection of areas in the far-distant sky where small stars - not planets - fly swiftly in orbit around much larger stars. The Kepler specialists have discovered that at least one of those small orbiting stars is far hotter than the larger star it orbits - an entirely unknown phenomenon.
"We've never seen such things before," Lissauer said.
The Kepler mission is scheduled to continue at least for the next three years, hunting for signs of Earth-size rocky planets in so-called habitable zones where life itself is possible.
David Perlman ,Chronicle Science Editor
"One of the planets is amazingly light - like Styrofoam," said William J. Borucki, the astronomer from NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View who conceived the Kepler mission 25 years ago and now leads it.
Picture- National Geographic
The five exoplanets, as they are known, are the first that scientists have detected from Kepler's signals, and they are evidence of the strange solar systems that may exist far beyond our own, the scientists say.
The newfound planets are far larger than Earth. The smallest is the size of Neptune, four times Earth's size, and the three biggest are much larger than Jupiter, which is 10 times the size of Earth.
Hot, hot planets
Two planets are hotter than molten lava at about 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, and the largest one, at nearly 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit, is hotter than molten iron.
NASA scientists described Kepler's findings Monday during a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington and briefed reporters by telephone. A detailed report on the findings will be published Thursday in the journal Science.
A network of nine major ground-based telescopes, from Hawaii to the Canary Islands, and including the Lick Observatory above San Jose, confirmed Kepler's discoveries.
Geoffrey Marcy of UC Berkeley, a member of the Kepler team, noted in an e-mail that the five new planets Borucki announced have all been measured with "exquisite detail about their sizes, masses and orbits."
He said he's enthusiastic about what scientists will learn by the time the Kepler mission is over.
"We are measuring the brightnesses of 100,000 stars with a precision of 20 parts per million, and this unprecedented accuracy will allow us to detect the dimming of any Earth-sized planet crossing in front of any of those 100,000 stars," Marcy wrote. "It's a rare moment in science when an historic discovery looms so tantalizingly close to our outstretched fingertips."
In its search for planets, Kepler is examining 150,000 stars, most of which are inactive and quiet. Natalie Batalha, a San Jose State University astronomer who studies the fierce energy variations among stars, predicted that Kepler's data "will revolutionize stellar seismology."
Early excitement
At Kepler's mission control center at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, planetary astronomer Jack Lissauer was also excited about the mission's early results.
"We're achieving the kind of precision we really need to detect true Earth analogues," Lissauer said in an interview. "And seeing that so many of those suns out there are so quiet will enable us to learn much more about the interior of the stars themselves."
Among the surprising Kepler findings since it was launched in March, he said, was the detection of areas in the far-distant sky where small stars - not planets - fly swiftly in orbit around much larger stars. The Kepler specialists have discovered that at least one of those small orbiting stars is far hotter than the larger star it orbits - an entirely unknown phenomenon.
"We've never seen such things before," Lissauer said.
The Kepler mission is scheduled to continue at least for the next three years, hunting for signs of Earth-size rocky planets in so-called habitable zones where life itself is possible.
David Perlman ,Chronicle Science Editor
