Science and Technology : NASA: Huge Telescope detects five Planets circling their Sun [host star]!

[Chevron Dove]

Wow! They said they found five planets circling their sun! This is Interesting. Another Solar System. Uhm. But I keep wondering to myself, ‘Who’s paying for this enormous telescope!?’

Nasa's Kepler Space Telescope has detected its first five planets beyond our solar system.

The observatory, which was launched last year to find other Earths, made the discoveries in its first few weeks of science operations.

Although the new worlds, called exoplanets, are all bigger than Neptune, Nasa said their discovery showed that the planet hunting telescope was working well.

…And they all circle very close to their parent stars, following orbits that range from about 3.2 to 4.9 days...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...ts-five-planets-outside-the-solar-system.html

 

[jamesfrmphilly]

white scientists welfare

But I keep wondering to myself, ‘Who’s paying for this enormous telescope!?’

we are, the taxpayers

 

[jamesfrmphilly]

Astronomers have identified 1,235 candidate planets beyond the solar system, including 54 where life might have a chance of gaining a foothold.


http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/69476/title/Spacecraft_sees_signs_of_1,200-plus_worlds

 

[Chevron Dove]

Astronomers have identified 1,235 candidate planets beyond the solar system, including 54 where life might have a chance of gaining a foothold.


http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/69476/title/Spacecraft_sees_signs_of_1,200-plus_worlds

This is the last part of the article that makes me wonder:

Until last year, says Laughlin, the composition of planets intermediate in mass between Earth and Uranus, the solar system’s next heaviest planet after Earth, was uncharted territory (SN: 2/12/11, p. 12).

The Kepler-11 system suggests that many such planets resemble Uranus more than they do rocky Earth, Lissauer says. The system will also allow astronomers to understand how different kinds of planets can form around the same star, he adds.​

I wonder how they determine the mass of Uranus and etc. At any rate, it seems like an expensive endeavor to say the least.

They already said that they [NASA?] had determined that one moon around Saturn resembled earth, and yet, they are in search of more...?