The Kepler space telescope looks for planets by measuring tiny decreases in the brightness of stars when planets cross in front of them. Scientists say extensive observations from earth-based telescopes are needed to confirm the existence of the planets.
Yale University astronomer Debra Fischer says non-professional astronomers around the world are helping study the new information about the possible planets. They are doing this on an Internet website called PlanetHunters.org.
(MUSIC)
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: A spacecraft from the United States space agency has a date with comet Temple 1 on February fourteenth. The Stardust-NExT spacecraft is to meet the comet on Valentine’s Day. This is the day when many people will be going out on a date with someone special in their lives.
This meeting is all the more meaningful because comet Temple 1 has been visited before. And scientists are very interested in seeing how this solar system body has changed over the years.
The goal of the Stardust-NExT spacecraft is to gather scientific evidence about one of the solar system’s most changeable objects -- comets. Comets are balls of ice and rock that leave behind a trail of gas and dust in space as they approach the sun’s warming light.
Sometimes, observers see this as a comet’s tail, which can be visible to the unaided eye stretching across the night sky.
On February fourteenth, Stardust will approach to within two hundred kilometers of comet Temple 1. The spacecraft will take seventy-two high quality pictures of the comet’s nucleus, which is about six kilometers across. But this is not the first time that Temple 1 has been observed closely.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25