NASA Discovers Nearly 1,300 New Planets
NASA — the U.S. space agency — said it foundnearly 1,300 planets outside our solar system.
Nine of the planets are orbiting stars at the distancethat can support life.
NASA said that the Kepler space telescopeconfirmed the existence of 1,284 planets. This result came from studying more than 4,000possible planets identified by a statistical analysis.
Scientists said the research is important to help them find out whether there is life on otherplanets.
Paul Hertz is NASA's director of astrophysics. He said, "this gives us hope that somewhere outthere, around a star much like ours, we can eventually discover another Earth."
He said before the Kepler space telescope launched, scientists did not know whether exoplanets—those outside our solar system—were rare or common in the galaxy.
"We now know there could be more planets than stars," Hertz said.
He said the information brings humans a little closer to finding out whether they are alone in theuniverse.
To reach this number of planets, scientists looked at thousands of pieces of data. Theresearchers used a new statistical analysis method to study thousands of candidates inKepler's database for traits that would establish them as planets.
Princeton University's Timothy Morton led the analysis. It involved watching a planet'sbrightness for changes that would mean it was orbiting its star, the way that Earth circles thesun.
The data gave scientists a "planethood probability percentage" to help the experts focus oncandidates most likely to turn out to be actual planets.
But, with so many objects in space, what makes a planet, a planet?
The International Astronomical union (IAU), approved the first scientific definition of a planetin August 2006. It says the object must have three things to be called a planet.
It must orbit its star. Second, it must be big enough that gravity shapes it into a ball. Andthird, the pull of that gravity must be strong enough to clear small objects out of the way ofits orbit.
NASA said nearly 550 of the planets were "rocky planets," somewhat like Earth, based on theirsize. Nine of those planets were orbiting their suns at the distance that would allow liquid waterto pool.
That means, they have conditions that would make life possible. At least, the kind of life thatexists here on Earth.
Natalie Batalha is Kepler mission scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. Shethinks there is life on other planets.
"Absolutely, no question," she said. "Why would we be the only ones?"
She used a line from the movie "Contact," that astronomer Carl Sagan was supposed to havesaid. If humans were the only life in the universe, it would be "an awful waste of space."
Recently, popular movies like "The Martian" and "Interstellar" have focused on finding newhomes for humans in case we destroy Earth.
Batalha said she is focused on searching for life, not on finding new homes for humans.
"We have so many questions," she said. "Is DNA the only code that sustains life? How does lifebegin? Questions about the origin of life, why we're here."
That new number, 1,284 new planets, makes the idea that we are "alone in the universe" seemmore and more unlikely.
I'm Anne Ball.
姓名：孟帆
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