In a Lonely Cosmos, a Hunt for Worlds Like Ours

[n2doc]

PEERING DEEPLY The primary mirror of the Kepler telescope. The craft’s mission, set to begin Friday, is to discover Earth-like planets in Earth-like places.

By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: March 2, 2009
Someday it might be said that this was the beginning of the end of cosmic loneliness.

Presently perched on a Delta 2 rocket at Cape Canaveral is a one-ton spacecraft called Kepler. If all goes well, the rocket will lift off about 10:50 Friday evening on a journey that will eventually propel Kepler into orbit around the Sun. There the spacecraft’s mission will be to discover Earth-like planets in Earth-like places — that is to say, in the not-too-cold, not-too-hot, Goldilocks zones around stars where liquid water can exist.

The job, in short, is to find places where life as we know it is possible.

“It’s not E.T., but it’s E.T.’s home,” said William Borucki, an astronomer at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in California, who is the lead scientist on the project. Kepler, named after the German astronomer who in 1609 published laws of planetary motion that now bear his name, will look for tiny variations in starlight caused by planets passing in front of their stars. Dr. Borucki and his colleagues say that Kepler could find dozens of such planets — if they exist. The point is not to find any particular planet — hold off on the covered-wagon spaceships — but to find out just how rare planets like Earth are in the cosmos.

Jon Morse, director for astrophysics at NASA headquarters, calls Kepler the first planetary census taker.

more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/science/03kepl.html?

[Phoonzang]

1. NASA's shitty rockets better not blow up this payload.

I've been waiting for this mission for years.