Kepler discovers a super Earth twelve times the mass of Earth.
The latest of super Earths discovered also left scientists relieved; the discovery is confirmation the Kepler telescope, which has been out of commission for a while, is currently functioning.
The super Earth is twenty thousand miles in diameter, 2 1/2 the size of Earth, and twelve times as massive; it's an exoplanet, with an orbit around a sun that takes nine days to complete. The planet is too close to its sun (cooler and smaller than the Solar System's) to support life.
The super Earth is tagged HIP 116454b, located in the Pisces region, 180 light years from Earth. Its existence was confirmed Thursday after significant documentation from the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo in the Canary Islands and Canada's MOST satellite.
An equipment failure in the Kepler telescope kept scientists in the dark for a while, but repurposed for the K2 mission and sweep outer space for other planets.
The discovery is good news for scientists and engineers, who were expecting the worst out of the Kepler telescope earlier this year. Paul Hertz of NASA's astrophysics division:
"Last summer, the possibility of a scientifically productive mission for Kepler after its reaction wheel failure in its extended mission was not part of the conversation. Today, thanks to an innovative idea and lots of hard work by the NASA and Ball Aerospace team, Kepler may well deliver the first candidates for follow-up study by the James Webb Space Telescope to characterize the atmospheres of distant worlds and search for signatures of life." (nasa.gov)
The exoplanet is expected to be one of many super Earths discovered on the Solar System's doorstep, more common than previously considered.
"The Kepler mission showed us that planets larger in size than Earth and smaller than Neptune are common in the galaxy, yet they are absent in our solar system. K2 is uniquely positioned to dramatically refine our understanding of these alien worlds and further define the boundary between rocky worlds like Earth and ice giants like Neptune," according to Steve Howell, project scientist for the Kepler/K2 project at NASA.
