Kepler's K2 mission confirms 104 Earth-like planets

An international team of astronomers has confirmed a treasure trove of new exoplanets spotted by NASA's Kepler spacecraft during its K2 mission. Kepler was launched in 2009 to search for Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars. Scientists describe the region where an exoplanet might be the right distance away from a star to …

[TonyJ]

Wow!

It never fails to amaze me how the NASA engineers and scientists work around problems with clever, innovative solutions.

Not to mention the brilliance of the mission to begin with.

Hats off to them all.

[Dabooka]

Re: Wow!

I think all of us on here would raise a pint to that sentiment.

To think I'm chuffed with myself when I cobble something together in the shed from old broken things and a rivet gun!

[Chairo]

slightly broken, but still perfectly functional

perhaps I should use this excuse the next time my wife complains about my 'old hardware' drawers. Or myself...

Half of my lifetime we didn't even know if there are planets around other stars an now they find them in the hundreds in goldilocks zones.

Good job NASA! Thank you for expanding not only our knowledge but also our universe!

[TimR]

Altitude or attitude?

"The spacecraft could no longer rely on its reaction wheels to control its altitude,"

[bob, mon!]

Re: Altitude or attitude?

The article I'm seeing says "attitude" --- referring to the orientation of the telescope in space, i.e. which way it points.

The reaction wheels would have no significant impact on the altitude.

[TimR]

Re: Altitude or attitude?

I guess that's because it has been corrected...

[Anonymous Blowhard]

A 24 day year? I'd only just have enough time to recover from one Hogmanay to the next!

[Phil O'Sophical]

Birthdays would get expensive quickly.

[Neil Lewis]

A 24 day year might make for some interesting, fast maturing plants, if any exist?

[DNTP]

Re: 24-day year

Surely this would depend on many factors other than the planet's orbital period of 576 hours. The incredibly small distance between the planet and its dwarf star intuitively suggests to me that it is tidally locked, with one side being a light-blasted desert, and the other being a bleak, dark wasteland.

The existence and extent of "moderate" zones which would tend to support life as we think of it, would depend greatly on the existence of an atmospheric or fluidic medium to exchange heat, as well as various orbital factors such as eccentricity and inclination which would induce seasonality into the edges of the extreme zones.

[James 51]

Depends if there are seasons or not and how long the day/night cycle is. It if was tidally locked it might be a Brian Sldiss/Hothouse scenario.

[hi_robb]

Ahem

May I be the first to welcome our new M dwarf K2-72 system dwelling overlords.

[Nunyabiznes]

hyper drive

Ok, now that we know there are lots of possibilities for Earth-like planets out there (even if we haven't nailed one down definitively) we need to get cracking on hyper drives or wormholes or ... so we can send a B ark.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouln't mind a 24 day year so long as it's not Patch Tuesday on 12 of them.

[Timbo]

"I wouln't mind a 24 day year so long as it's not Patch Tuesday on 12 of them."

OTOH, would it be great if it was a combined payday and POETS day on the other 12 "days" ;-)