NASA's depiction of an exoplanet discovered last year.
(Credit: NASA)NASA's Kepler space telescope, which searches for Earth-like planets in habitable zones beyond our solar system, has found five new exoplanets.
NASA said on Monday that the exoplanets, planets outside of our solar system, are called Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b, and 8b. Finding those planets, NASA says, justifies using Kepler as a means of finding another Earth-like planet. The space agency also said the telescope "will meet all its science goals."
NASA's Kepler mission, which launched on March 6 last year, is designed to observe more than 150,000 stars to find Earth-like planets. NASA said in a statement that although it has announced five discoveries, Kepler has already identified "hundreds of possible planet signatures that are being analyzed." In the end, Kepler's goal is to determine if we really are alone in our galaxy.
The five planets NASA found are being called "hot Jupiters" by scientists and range from the size of Neptune to even larger than Jupiter. Their orbits range from 3.3 days to 4.9 days. They get their "hot" moniker thanks to temperatures ranging from 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Unfortunately, that means that all five planets are too hot for human life.
"It's gratifying to see the first Kepler discoveries rolling off the assembly line," Jon Morse, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. "We expected Jupiter-size planets in short orbits to be the first planets Kepler could detect. It's only a matter of time before more Kepler observations lead to smaller planets with longer period orbits, coming closer and closer to the discovery of the first Earth analog."
Kepler is one of NASA's most sophisticated tools for identifying planets. The instrument looks for planets by measuring dips in the brightness of stars. As planets move around their stars, they block starlight, a phenomenon that can therefore be used as an indication of their presence. Kepler will continue searching until at least November 2012. NASA believes it could take at least three years for it to locate and verify an Earth-size planet.
Hubble going deep into space to look back at history.
(Credit: NASA)The Hubble Space Telescope has taken the deepest near-infrared image of the universe in history, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced on Tuesday.
The image, which was taken in August by the "HUDF09" team, features galaxies that formed just 600 million years after the Big Bang. NASA said that not only are those the oldest galaxies ever seen, but the data that can be extracted from the image will provide "insights into how galaxies grew in their formative years early in the universe's history."
Hubble was able to capture such detail, thanks to the Wide Field Camera 3, which was installed earlier this year. The camera captures light from "near-infrared wavelengths," allowing it to peer deeper into the galaxy than its predecessors. "The light from very distant galaxies is stretched out of the ultraviolet and visible regions of the spectrum into near-infrared wavelengths by the expansion of the universe," NASA said.
Although the image might just look like a series of lights to the untrained eye, NASA said 12 scientific papers have already been submitted by those who studied the data contained in the image. It's entirely possible that this discovery will shed more light on galaxy formation and the universe's history.
But that Hubble shot is only the beginning. NASA wrote that the Hubble observations are "trailblazing a path for Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, which will look even farther into the universe than Hubble, at infrared wavelengths." NASA said the James Webb Space Telescope should be launched in 2014.
Until then, we can feast our eyes on the astounding image returned from Hubble. Note the detail. Even more amazing: this image was taken of just a small slice of the universe. Imagine what else is out there.
If you'd like to learn a little more about Hubble's discovery, click here.
Should we be going to the Red Planet next?
(Credit: NASA)If you had to choose the subject of NASA's attention over the next decade, what would you pick? Would you want to push the space agency to go back to the moon? Would you want it to devote its budget toward a human mission to Mars?
The Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, a panel ordered to chart the future of the U.S. space program, is trying to narrow those possibilities. So far, the group has come up with several ideas for how NASA should focus its resources (PDF).
For starters, one option the panel has suggested would see NASA focus on maintaining the International Space Station through 2020, rather than shuttering its ISS operations at the end of 2015, as planned. Another option is to get astronauts back to the moon for the first time since the Apollo program.
Another choice calls for astronauts to explore deep space, eventually traveling to Mars' moons. The panel also crafted an option that would see NASA maintain extended stays on Earth's moon. It would enable astronauts to travel to different areas of the lunar landscape, rather than stick to one location.
But perhaps the most compelling option the panel made public is an astronaut-attended trip to Mars. It said that if all of NASA's focus and government funding is allocated to going to Mars, it might be possible.
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Budget costs are an obvious concern and a key determining factor in what plan NASA will follow, going forward. Panel member Norman Augustine, the former chief executive of Lockheed Martin, told The New York Times that none of the options would feature "an exorbitant price tag."
That should make legislators happy. But that alone won't determine NASA's future.
... Read MoreJuly has been quite a month for space lovers. From the launch of the Endeavour space shuttle and the anniversary of the first moon landing to the death of Walter Cronkite, the "Most Trusted Man in America" and a self-professed student of space exploration, we have seen our fair share of ups and downs this month.
The Most Trusted Man in America.
(Credit: CBS News)And as the economy and health care continue to weigh heavily on our minds, it's space that has slowly made its way back to dinner tables across the United States.
Back in the 1960s, when Walter Cronkite was on the air almost every night, giving Americans updates on the NASA space program, people both young and old huddled around their televisions waiting to hear when (or if) we would get to the moon. Americans cared about space. They were interested. And they wanted to know as much as possible about it.
But after the moon landing in 1969, interest in NASA's space exploration started to fade. In recent years, some have spent more time calling on the federal government to shutter NASA rather than fund it. In 1969, such a suggestion seemed unfathomable.
And yet, just as those of us who still support space exploits thought it would only get worse, July brought on what I believe is the most discussion and enthusiasm about space that we've seen in a long time. And maybe (just maybe), it might return to its former place of glory.
Let's recap how it happened.
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A planetary nebula captured with Hubble.
(Credit: NASA)Space is an interesting subject. It arguably matters most to our knowledge of life. Understanding issues affecting the universe today will help us recognize them as they impact our lives going forward. And since we simply don't have the ability to explore space the way it would be required to fully understand our history, it's the Hubble Space Telescope that we must rely on to provide that for us.
But it's not without its critics. With each new service mission (including the latest), critics have contended that Hubble simply costs too much for what we're getting. And according to one U.S. legislator, it's to the detriment of other programs.
"We have to make hard choices about whether a Hubble mission is worth it now, when moving ahead is likely to have an adverse impact on other programs, including quite possibly other programs in astronomy," Sherwood Boehlert, a former Republican congressman from New York, said in 2005.
Hubble's cost is certainly high. According to NASA, the telescope has cost the United States $9.6 billion since its launch in 1990. In that time, critics remind us that scientists still haven't determined the real age of the universe; they still don't know, for sure, how the galaxy was formed, and they wonder if all those pictures Hubble sends back are really all that important.
Yes, they are.
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I don't think MTV's new music video site is enough to beat out YouTube and MySpace. But will it eventually get to a point where it will? Find out in my latest video.
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During this past year, a number of oddities emerged in the world of tech. First, Microsoft was forced to live through an unbridled flop, Apple was enjoying its meteoric rise as the most successful company of the year and social networks gained even more steam. On the back of that, the world's favorite social network, MySpace, quickly gave ground to Facebook and companies like the ill-fated Netscape tried to take on Digg.
And it's that site -- Digg.com -- that emerged this year, not necessarily as the most popular social site (it's tough to call it a full-fledged social networking company in the vein of a Facebook or MySpace), but as the best destination for people surfing the Web.
Don't believe me? Let's take a look at some other social networking sites to see why they couldn't make the cut.
... Read MoreSpaces was one of the wild cards in Leopard that I wasn't too sure about going in. But now I can say, after using it for the past twenty-four hours, that it is one of the most useful and logical additions to Leopard. In fact, I might go so far as to say that Spaces is my new favorite app on Mac OS X.
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