NASA Releases Kepler Data On Potential Extrasolar Planets
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100615192010.htm
NASA Releases Kepler Data on Potential Extrasolar Planets -JPL
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-200&rn=news.xml&rst=2635
KEPLER’S CONTINUING SEARCH FOR EXOPLANETS
William Borucki: "This discovery is just astounding."
After continually monitoring the brightness of more than 156,000 stars, NASA's Kepler team has released the first 43 days of science data…
William Borucki: "This is the biggest release of candidate planets that has ever happened. The number of candidate planets is actually greater than all the planets that have been discovered in the last 15 years."
Launch Announcer: "3-2-engine start—1,zero, and lift off of the Delta II Rocket with Kepler." Since its launch on March 6, 2009, Kepler has been on the hunt to find planets similar in size to our Earth, especially those in the habitable zone of stars where liquid water and possibly life might exist.
William Borucki: "A planet candidate is some astrophysical signal that we have picked up that looks like it’s coming from a planet orbiting another star. Some of those are actual planets, and some of them are false positives so we have a ground-based program with a dozen different telescopes that stretch from the Canary Islands, to Hawaii, where we check to see which of those signals is really a planet, and which one isn't."
The findings of those follow-up observations will be released in February 2011.
