New Planetary Neighborhoods

New Worlds: Not SF Anymore!

I know the news about the new planets has really grabbed people this past week. There’s something about distant worlds that excites the science fiction-lover inside each of us.  And, Kepler has found another 715 new worlds among the myriad of observations it has made.

What kind of worlds are they?  The statistics are fascinating. Around 95 percent of them are smaller than our planet Neptune. That’s a big step forward. It means that we’re able to detect smaller worlds now, although it does take a bit longer to confirm them since they’re — well, small. Which makes them harder to spot in the followup observations. Many of them are in multiple-world systems, similar to ours, which has planets, moons, and outer worlds not even discovered yet.

Four of the newly found planets are only about 2.5 times the size of Earth AND they orbit in a region around their stars called the habitable zone. That’s an area of space where conditions are right to allow the existence of liquid water on a planet’s surface. One of the worlds belongs to a star that is half the size and much dimmer than our Sun. That’s the level of detail they’re getting from these observations. And, the discovery of new worlds around other stars is now completely OUT of the realm of science fiction. In fact, I say it’s been out since 1995, when the first one was found. This stuff’s IS real, folks!

So, now, all you budding science fiction writers out there, read the full story on the latest discovery, check out the exoplanets at the Kepler web site and see for yourself that they exist. Figure out from their orbital characteristics just what kind of planets they might be. With that, you’ve got fodder for countless stories to be told. And, that’s a great thing. I’ve always said the universe has great stories to tell — and it just keeps supplying writers with a LOT more places to set them.

By the way, there’s a cool new app out called Exoplanet.  It keeps track of the latest exoplanet discoveries (although as if this writing it hadn’t quite caught up with the latest discovery, but give it time) and gives you lots of data about other-world discoveries. It has in-app purchases that allow you to plug in other functionality, but the main app itself is free. So, if you’re into exoplanets (or want to be), check it out!