NASA telescope launches to find Earth-like planets
- 00:00:53
- ITN
NASA telescope launches to find Earth-like planets
A Nasa telescope is set to launch on a mission to look for Earth-like planets around other stars and determine whether there are places that could support human-like life beyond our solar system. Ahead of lift-off of the Kepler telescope from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, Nasa's space science chief Ed Weiler said: "This is an historical mission. It really attacks some basic human questions that have been asked since that first man or woman looked up in the sky and asked, 'Are we alone?'" Once in orbit, Kepler will be aimed at a star-rich stretch of sky between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra in the Milky Way galaxy. Light-collecting devices in the 95-megapixel telescope are sensitive enough to detect slight changes in the number of photons emanating from more than 100,000 stars in it's field of view. Scientists have already found more than 340 planets circling stars beyond our solar system, but none of those worlds are as small as Earth. Kepler is the first instrument designed solely to hunt for Earth-sized worlds circling their parent stars at the proper distance for liquid water to exist. Water is believed to be a necessary ingredient for life. The survey will take about three years, after which scientists expect to be able to announce whether Earth-like planets are common or rare. Gibor Basri, a Kepler scientist at the University of California, said: "It could possibly tell us that earths are very, very common, that we have lots of neighbours out there. Or, it could tell us that earths are really, really, really rare - perhaps we're the only Earth,"
ITN | March 6, 2009
