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March 5, 2014
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March 3, 2014
Alina Dain Sharon: In the Hebrew calendar, a leap year has extra month, not day
Ben Cohen: Latest Obama appointment to prove Prez set on emasculating so-called Israel Lobby
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Jewish World Review
April 23, 2013/ 13 Iyar, 5773
NASA Kepler mission brings sci-fi closer to reality
By
Dale McFeatters
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Americans who lament that this country can no longer seem to do anything great are overlooking technological wonders like NASA's Kepler mission and its search for habitable planets.
The Kepler space telescope, launched in March 2009, has led to a breakthrough in planet hunting. Aimed at a specific patch of the Milky Way, it already had identified 115 planets. And, NASA announced last week, Kepler has found the two most Earthlike worlds yet -- and the ones most capable of supporting life -- in a five-planet system named Kepler-62 in the constellation Lyra.
The most promising planet for life is Kepler-62f, 40 percent larger than Earth but the right temperature and right in the middle of the habitable zone. The other planet, Kepler-62e, is 60 percent larger than Earth and on the inner edge of the habitable zone.
NASA's William Borucki, head of the Kepler project, called 62f the best planet Kepler has yet found. Alan Boss, a planetary expert and member of the team, said this discovery alone justified the approximately $600 million cost of the mission.
Kepler, like other NASA missions, has accelerated the speed of discovery.
For the sake of argument, let's say that astronomy -- the systematic study of stars, planets and the universe -- dates back to at least when Stonehenge was built to track solstices and equinoxes.
For those intervening thousands of years, astronomers vainly tried to locate a planet outside our solar system. Although it seemed mathematically unlikely, the empirical evidence was that our solar system was alone in having planets and that Earth alone was inhabited.
That changed in 1992 with the discovery of the first "exoplanet," a planet outside our solar system. Other discoveries followed, but these were of gas giants, larger than Jupiter, incapable of supporting life.
The search was on for rocky planets, roughly the size of Earth, orbiting a star at a distance called the "Goldilocks zone," where it is not too hot, not too cold, with moderate temperatures hospitable to life.
In the brief time we've known of exoplanets, astronomers have discovered almost 1,000 of them, along with more than 2,700 "candidate" bodies, potential planets for which proof is still lacking.
The Kepler system is 1,200 light years away, or 708,000 trillion miles, dampening any immediate visitation prospects. But the lesson of exoplanets is never to say never.
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Previously:
• 04/22/13 It's over: The end of any expectation Americans have of privacy in a public place
• 04/19/13 Chicago sinkhole, a possible recreation site
• 04/17/13 Not too early to think about Joe v. Hillary
• 04/15/13 Maybe they should go back to flying carpets
• 04/12/13 For U.S. food aid, healthful reform proposed
• 04/11/13 Obama sends Congress a $3.77 trillion budget
• 04/10/13 A new death ray, a la Buck Rogers
• 04/09/13 China's patience may be running out
• 04/05/13 Dementia a threat to nation's health and finances
• 04/01/13 North Korea rattles the guns of war
• 03/29/13 Justifying the costs of ex-presidents
• 03/26/13 Congress OKs funding, pats itself on back
• 03/25/13 The more babies, the merrier and the more solvent
• 03/22/13 The quick red fox jumps --- oh, never mind
• 03/21/13 Living large on no dollars a day
• 03/20/13 Cyprus, chaos and the butterfly effect
• 03/19/13 What Obama's visit to Israel lacks in substance, it makes up for in symbolism
• 03/18/13 Visit the USA! It's not as much hassle anymore
• 03/15/13 Iraq War spurred medical progress, at great cost
• 03/14/13 In death, Chavez escapes a final indignity
• 03/13/13 Deficits falling -- maybe
• 03/12/13 Jobless rate dips, almost in spite of Congress
• 03/11/13 Rescuing remnants of the hated Berlin Wall
• 03/08/13 Mr. Paul Goes to Washington
• 03/05/13 Dennis Rodman puts up diplomatic air ball
• 03/04/13 Congress faces reality, passes anti-violence act
• 03/01/13 Titanic II: If at first you don't succeed ...
• 02/27/13 Telecommuters back to office!
• 02/26/13 Federal agencies to make sure public feels pain, too
• 02/25/13 You've been good citizens. Now get out
• 02/21/13 The drones are coming, ready or not
• 02/20/13 Deadbeats undermine the best of intentions
• 02/19/13 Artificial retina offers eye-opening promise
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• 02/13/13 Instead of black helicopters, fluffy white blimps
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• 01/25/13 North Korea on 'settling accounts' with U.S.
• 01/24/13 Iran will invent world domination
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• 01/21/13 Congress will spend year resting up -- who knows for what
• 01/17/13 Inaugurations inevitably include a slip-up
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• 08/16/11: ‘Super Committee’ starts facing reality
• 08/15/11: World's fastest plane disappears even faster
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• 08/10/11: House pages run final errands
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• 08/05/11: Most 9/11 victims not on federal death records
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• 08/03/11: Congress goes from one bind to another
• 08/02/11: D.B. Cooper may no longer be a mystery
• 08/01/11: Libya's latest weapon against NATO --- lawsuits
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• 07/22/11: Bachmann's admirable medical candor
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• 07/08/11: Debt crisis need not be constitutional crisis
• 07/07/11: Startups entice new talent with kickball, treehouses
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• 06/27/11: The hangman doesn't cometh
© 2011, SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
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