This Friday night, NASA will launch Kepler, a satellite designed to discover Earth-sized planets -- potential homes for alien life forms -- that may orbit nearby stars. But that's only part of what the new orbiting telescope can do, says MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager (inset), one of the members of the Kepler team. For instance, it can learn a lot more about the many "hot Jupiters" -- giant planets that have been discovered orbiting very close to their parent stars -- including how reflective they are, which could be a clue to their composition. New discoveries could be announced within a year, if all goes well with Friday's launch, Seager says, and "there's no reason why Kepler shouldn't find hundreds of new planets." Image / NASA
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on March 11, 2009 (download PDF).
