Kepler-22b in the zone

Oh to be a exoplanet scientist. These must be heady times in this particular field. The confirmation that Kepler-22b, slightly larger than Earth, is in the habitable zone of a star very similar to our Sun, is pretty exciting stuff.



The number of candidate planets found by the Kepler probe has almost doubled to 2326. From one probe. Looking in one part of the sky! Think about it. Just imagine. Try to imagine all the worlds out there that we have yet to discover.

Won't be long now...

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I keep thinking about this. As fantastic as Kepler is, it only detects transits. Imagine how many stars are rejected because no transit is observed. But that does NOT mean they don't host a solar system. With Earth sized planets. In the habitable zone... Just imagine.