2 wheels have failed already. No reason to think the remaining ones are 'magic wheels' or anything. One more and its all over.
The Kepler Team will get this year's top honors: the Dr. Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy. In its search for alien worlds, the Kepler space telescope "has revolutionized exoplanet science and stellar astrophysics." Kepler data has allowed scientists detect more than 3,500 planet candidates outside of our solar system. Though the spacecraft, which launched in 2009, is now hobbled after a mechanical failure in May, NASA officials are weighing a new modified mission for Kepler.
One of the participants is a research scientist at the SETI Institute. Looking forward to this!
Thanks for the link and info. I get what you're saying, but I'm hoping they'll have another habitable zone discovery or two to announce, even if not I'm still looking forward to this announcement as I find exoplanets fascinating.
Quote from: Bubbinski on 02/21/2014 09:26 pmThanks for the link and info. I get what you're saying, but I'm hoping they'll have another habitable zone discovery or two to announce, even if not I'm still looking forward to this announcement as I find exoplanets fascinating.One of the many folk working on Kepler, Dr. Steve Kawaler, is giving a talk soon at my University on the search for extraterrestrial life. If any of you have burning questions regarding the topic (i.e. exoplanet related), let me know and I should have no problem asking him. I may go out to eat with him later.
What's interesting is that most of solar systems discovered so far don't look like ours with the planets widely spaced out, instead with these the planets seem to be stacked closer together near their stars. I wonder if this could effect the chances of extraterrestrial life arising?