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Episode: Finding the Next Earth

Finding the Next Earth

Published March 23, 2013

Kepler Joins the Race

Photograph by National Geographic Channels

NASA's Kepler Spacecraft is built around a mirror telescope and is dedicated to find Earth-like worlds around other stars. Kepler team members have their own worries. Weeks earlier, NASA the nose-cone protecting a satellite during launch became stuck and the satellite was lost. The “clam shell” design used on the Taurus is similar to the one protecting Kepler, so the flight engineers give it a thorough inspection.

Meet Dr Batalha

Photograph by National Geographic Channels

Dr. Natalie Batalha at Keck Observatory. She is a professor of physics and astronomy at San Jose State University.

Vulcan

Photograph by Natalie Batalha

Kepler 10b, also known as "Vulcan", is not only rocky, it is roughly the same size as our home planet.

Lava on Kepler 10b?

Photograph by National Geographic Channels

Active lava flowing. Dr. Batalha things that this landscape is similar to the kind of terrain Natalie thinks is on Kepler 10b.

Night View

Photograph by National Geographic Channels

A composite of what Vulcan's (Kepler 10b) night side may look like.

Kepler Mission

Photograph by SkyWorks Digital, Inc

Batalha and the rest of the Kepler team announce an extensive list of potential planets, over 1,200 in all, and at least one of them is both rocky and small like our Earth. Designated, Kepler 10b, Batalha confirms its existence with supplemental observations by the Keck Telescope on the summit of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea.

Orbitting Earth

Photograph by SkyWorks Digital, Inc

France's CoRot spacecraft in a low Earth, polar orbit.

Zarmina's World

Photograph by SkyWorks Digital, Inc

Zarmina's World is the unofficial nickname of a world thought to be in the habitable zone of the star Gliese 581. A narrow region along the terminator region between the day and night side of the planet.

Uninhabitable Planet

Photograph by SkyWorks Digital, Inc

The day side of Zarmina's World is thought to be a vast, uninhabitable desert, over heated by a sun that never sets.

Prize Within Our Reach

Photograph by SkyWorks Digital, Inc

Kepler 10b is the first rocky planet nearly the same size as Earth. The day side of the planet shown here thought to be molten and covered by a giant, hemispheric lava ocean. There is nothing on Earth like this lava ocean.

Hawaii vs Kepler

Photograph by SkyWorks Digital, Inc

The night side of the planet shown here could be cooler than the day side, and is therefore crusted over, but thought to be geologically active, similar to the lava flow on the Big Island of Hawai'i.

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