Earth Like Planets

This article talks about the Kepler telescope, which is under control by NASA, has discovered five potential earth sized planets that may support liquid water, and so possibly life. All five of these planets orbit a star in the habitable region so the planets are probably at proper temperatures to support liquid water. Now, NASA has to do some follow-up observations to confirm that what they discovered were actually planets. NASA also released new data on the telescope on more than 1,000 possible new planets outside of our solar system but in our galaxy. William Borucki, NASA said, "The fact that we've found so many planet candidates in such a tiny fraction of the sky suggests there are countless planets orbiting sun-like stars in our galaxy." They haven't confirmed them all to be planets yet but some astronomers think that over 90% of them are probably planets.

I think that it's really amazing that NASA has found new planets that could possibly sustain life, but I don't think that they're very practical. All of the planets that they discovered are outside of our solar system and therefore possibly light years away from us. The idea of ever traveling to them and altering their ecosystems to make them support life is outrageous. So overall, i think that NASA published this information just to make it as if they are making progress in a field that no real progress can be made in.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2011/02/02/science-space-kepler-planets.html