Kepler discovers 26 planets in 11 systems, speeds up discovery of exoplanets

Credit: NASA Ames/Dan Fabrycky, UC Santa Cruz

Kepler is at it again with 26 confirmed planets. As expected, when you have a telescope with 2300+ candidate discoveries there's going to be a lot of confirmations... From NASA's Kepler website:

"Prior to the Kepler mission, we knew of perhaps 500 exoplanets across the whole sky," said Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Now, in just two years staring at a patch of sky not much bigger than your fist, Kepler has discovered more than 60 planets and more than 2,300 planet candidates. This tells us that our galaxy is positively loaded with planets of all sizes and orbits." 

2012 will be a fun year to watch and I'm positive the 1000 number will be breached. Because Kepler is still a relatively young mission, it will take considerable time before planets with wide orbits (and longer periods between transits) will be detected--but I expect a lot of future detections there as well.

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, its host star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form. 

The planets orbit close to their host stars and range in size from 1.5 times the radius of Earth to larger than Jupiter. Fifteen of them are between Earth and Neptune in size, and further observations will be required to determine which are rocky like Earth and which have thick gaseous atmospheres like Neptune. The planets orbit their host star once every six to 143 days. All are closer to their host star than Venus is to our sun.

NASA's Kepler Announces 11 Planetary Systems Hosting 26 Planets

Public planet hunting goes live on BBC, participant discovers planet

As long as I can name my own planets, I want in! Following previous news that Planethunters.org gets +1million classifications, the BBC reports:

The public push initiated on BBC Two's Stargazing Live series to find planets beyond our Solar System has had an immediate result.

A viewer who answered the call has helped spot a world that appears to be circling a star dubbed SPH10066540.

The planet is described as being similar in size to our Neptune and circles its parent every 90 days.

Chris Holmes from Peterborough found it by looking through time-lapsed images of stars on Planethunters.org.

The website hosts data gathered by Nasa's Kepler space telescope, and asks volunteers to sift the information for anything unusual that might have been missed in a computer search.

"I've never had a telescope. I've had a passing interest in where things are in the sky, but never had any more knowledge about it than that," Mr Holmes told BBC News.

"Being involved in a project like this and actually being the one to find something is a very exciting position."

Chris Lintott from Oxford University who helps organise Planethunters.org added: "We're ecstatic. We've been groaning under the strain of all these people who want to help us, which is exactly how it should be."

The public participation project was launched last year, but it got a huge fillip when it was featured in the popular Stargazing series' return to BBC Two on Monday.

Volunteers have tripled to more than 100,000 people, and the number of images inspected has now reached a million.

Stargazing viewer in planet coup