14 DAY TRIAL // Officials at the American space agency announce that the Kepler telescope – NASA's planet-hunting mission – finally managed to discover its first rocky exoplanet. Several other stellar systems have been discovered before by the instrument, but they only contained large, gas giant-class planets.
The new celestial object has been dubbed Kepler-10b, keeping with the tradition of naming new systems after the telescopes that were used to analyze them. The new exoplanet is estimated to be about 1.4 times the size of Earth.
According to experts, it would appear that the object is one of the smallest exoplanets ever discovered outside of our solar system. This is good news, as it implies that small planets may exist in large numbers throughout the Universe.
This would in turn boost the chances of some of them being in their parent star's habitable zone, where water can exist in a liquid state. Experts say that this is one of the most important conditions that need to be fulfilled if such a body is to support life.
Kepler observed the same region of the night sky for more than 8 month, before finally collecting sufficient data to confirm the discovery. Observations were conducted between May 2009 and January 2010, and the analysis stage soon followed.
“All of Kepler's best capabilities have converged to yield the first solid evidence of a rocky planet orbiting a star other than our Sun,” explains research scientist Natalie Batalha.
“The Kepler team made a commitment in 2010 about finding the telltale signatures of small planets in the data, and it's beginning to pay off,” the expert goes on to say, quoted by Daily Galaxy.
Batalha holds an appointment as the deputy leader of the Kepler science team, and she is based in Moffett Field, California, at the NASA Ames Research Center (ARC). Kepler is the only telescope in orbit capable of detecting such small planets in the distant corners of the galaxy.
“The discovery of Kepler 10-b is a significant milestone in the search for planets similar to our own,” adds NASA Headquarters Kepler program scientist Douglas Hudgins.
“Although this planet is not in the habitable zone, the exciting find showcases the kinds of discoveries made possible by the mission and the promise of many more to come,” the expert concludes.