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SPACE-PLANET-KEPLER 10B
This NASA artist's concept image released on January 10, 2011 and obtained on February 1, 2011 shows Kepler-10b. NASA's Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of its first rocky planet, named Kepler-10b. Measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth, it is the smallest planet ever discovered outside our solar system. The discovery of this so-called exoplanet is based on more than eight months of data collected by the spacecraft from May 2009 to early January 2010. "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," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler's deputy science team lead at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and primary author of a paper on the discovery accepted by the Astrophysical Journal. "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." Kepler-10 was the first star identified that could potentially harbor a small transiting planet, placing it at the top of the list for ground-based observations with the W.M. Keck Observatory 10-meter telescope in Hawaii. AFP PHOTO/NASA/HANDOUT/RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE
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-, SPACE |
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AFP / Mediafax Foto |
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HO |
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1 Februarie 2011 |
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3600 x 2026 (769.1 KB) |
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