Also, it's very interesting that one of the scientists mentioned in the press release studies terrestrial magnetism......I'm waiting for Thursday!
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2010/08/kepler-results-ramps-up-search-extra-solar-planets/By Chris Gebhardt.
This area of observation yields approximately 156,000 stars ...In fact, the odds of Kepler detecting a terrestrial planet in or near the habitable zone of an observed star are 1 in 210. This means that if every star Kepler observed contained an Earth-like, terrestrial planet that orbited its parent star at roughly the same distance as Earth orbits the sun (and if that terrestrial planet was similar in size to Earth) Kepler would detect a total of 480 terrestrial planets in its three and a half year mission.
Because grazing transits are not easily detected, those with a duration less than half of a central transit are ignored.
Quote from: Chris Bergin on 08/27/2010 03:50 amhttp://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2010/08/kepler-results-ramps-up-search-extra-solar-planets/By Chris Gebhardt.Good article.
What will Kepler find? That's the exciting part, because we don't know. Borucki has estimated that if Earth-sized planets are common, the mission will uncover roughly 50 of them in orbits comparable to our own.
I guess this means we are no longer the center of the Universe or a least a good indication of that. Darn - it was fun thinking we were the big shots. My friends in Boston still believe they are the center of the Universe so this may hurt their egos as some point.