Kepler Planet-Hunting Space Telescope Launches

The Kepler planet hunting space telescope has successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Center on board a Delta II rocket. When Kepler is settled in low Earth orbit it will spend three and a half years looking for Earth sized planets.

The Kepler planet hunting space telescope, which will cost about six hundred million dollars, will image other suns and attempt to detect the minute changes in brightness that would indicate that a planet is passing in front of them. Kepler is so sensitive that it will be able to detect the sort of changes in brightness that an Earth sized world would cause. Kepler will image a hundred thousand stars during its mission and will present a catalogue of Earth sized planets, along with those whose temperatures could support liquid water, which may exist.

Hitherto, astronomers have been able to detect Jovian sized worlds by measuring the permutations of gravity caused by such planets on other stars. Recently the Spitzer space telescope found suggestions of asteroid belts circling Epsilon Eridani, indicating a possible Earth sized planet. Meanwhile the Hubble space telescope may well have actually imaged an extra solar planet in orbit around Formalhaut B.

If Kepler discovers a number of Earth sized worlds in orbit around other stars, a giant leap will have been taken in the science of astronomy, especially if it is also found that some of these new Earths could contain liquid water. Where water exists, so could life. Where life exists, so could intelligent life.

Scientists have suggested for decades that the laws of probability demand that at least some, if not many, of the billions of G type (i.e. like our own Sun) stars have Earth like worlds in orbit around them. But there is a difference between mathematical probability and scientific certainty, which it is hoped that Kepler will provide.

Of course it will be centuries before any of these Earth sized worlds could be examined closely, even if one can imagine a Star Trek-style warp drive someday being developed. But thanks to Kepler, we should soon know where those other Earths are. They will be waiting for our remote descendents to some day visit and, perhaps, to settle upon later in this millennium.

And if some of those other Earths contain intelligent life, then that revelation will have a profound effect on how we view ourselves in the Universe. We Earth humans will finally not be alone any longer.

Sources: Telescope is off to hunt for Earth-like worlds, James Dean, Florida Today, March 7th, 2009

Spitzer Epsilon Eridani Discoveries Spur Discussion, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, October 27th, 2008

Planet Formalhaut B Imaged by Hubble Space Telescope, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, November 14th, 2008