Follow the Kepler space telescope on twitter.
Now NASA has an amazing new use for twitter, a ships log of the progress of the recently launched Kepler space telescope. Kepler’s mission is to the search for other Earth-like planets in our Milky Way Galaxy. You can Follow Kepler on Twitter or become a fan of Kepler on facebook and follow it’s progress.
It has only recently been discovered how to identify planets orbiting other stars. Most of the planets discovered so far are very large giant planets or super hot planets. The real challenge is to find planets like our earth (terrestrial planets) that are actually habitable.
The mission of Kepler is to search in the habitable zone of the Milky Way. That way NASA will have a greater chance of detecting an earth-like planet. They are using a method called the “transit” method for detecting planets. When a planet passes in front of a star (a “transit”) the event is seen as a small black dot moving across the Sun. Kepler looks for dips in the brightness of stars that occurs when planets pass in front of them. The video below explains it quite well except that now Kepler is already launched.
Some people argue that in the current economic climate searching for earth-like planets is a waste of money. Maggie and I both disagree. This is exactly what we need to inspire our younger generation that anything is possible. Best of all they can get involved and follow Kepler on twitter.
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About Danny Sheehan
Danny lives in Hong Kong but is originally from Australia. He is Married to Maggie and together they have two children with whom they enjoy sharing and enjoying an exciting life with daily. Danny's passions are freedom, adventure and discovery, mainly in nature and science but also spiritually. He is a great believer in living in the NOW.
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Amazing Discoveries