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Published online 3 March 2009 | 458, 17 (2009) | doi:10.1038/458017a
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Looking for worlds like this one
NASA's Kepler mission is the best shot yet at detecting an Earth-sized planet elsewhere in the Galaxy.
An unblinking eye will soon take a long stare at stars in the constellation Cygnus looking for something familiar: a small, rocky planet that takes a year or so to orbit its star.
The eye is a photometer, the single instrument on board Kepler, a US$600-million NASA spacecraft set to launch on 6 March.
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Hope there will be other planets, like this, we won't lone.
I suppose the question coming up soon is what do we do to protect the worlds and life we find? It seems every view of sci-fi suggests Humanity will colonize but inevitably that means destruction of whatever ecosystem is already present. I doubt in the end the UN treaty on space will provide much protection-already some businessman has been insisting he'll claim an asteroid if he can get a marker to it. If we do find simple life on Mars, what will our response be? Will we still go ahead with terra-forming and colonization plans? Well, if there are other civilizations, they've been pretty decent not to devastate us with colonizers. Be nice if we could manage the same.
Forgive me for my ignorance here, but if COROT has trouble from energetic particles in Earth orbit, and Keppler is being put into Solar orbit to avoid this, won't Kepler be exposed to more energetic particles emitted by the Sun, and a similar number derived from cosmic sources? So how does this help exactly?
Congratulations to the Kepler team. While watching the launch last Fri and hearing the panel explain the mission, I realized that these kinds of endeavors raise our hopes and spirits. At least it did mine. The Keppler scientists and engineers represent the best our species offers to the world. It's easy to get bogged down in the mire of current events. NASA and JPL redirect our focus and let us witness just how advanced and capable we really are. Thank you, and God be with our astronauts tonight. Stephen M Pauley MD