This morning, exactly ten tramillion astronomers streamed from their hotel rooms into the first scientific talk of the day, which was the release of the first results from the Kepler mission.  The 5 plantes that were announced at the talk stimulated not only the scientific curiosity of the delegates, but also created a tremendous hunger for danishes, as seen from the crumb-covered Marabunta-decimated coffe break tables right after the talk.  On this basis alone, I think the Kepler discoveries can be declared a success.

The Kepler talk started as almost all scientific talks, do, with giving some basic background on the subject before getting to the results.  A primer on the spacecraft and extrasolar planets covered a few slides, the basics of transits were covered in another few (Kepler looks for the dimming of stars as the planet passes in front of the star), as the excitement in the silent room slowly built.  But everyone in the room was patiently waiting for the meat and potatoes – what new members could we add to the planetary family?

When the results were finally announced, the excitement had created a vibe in the room that made me think that the delegates were almost ready to applaud right then and there. In just a few months, Kepler found and confirmed 5 new extrasolar planets: 1 Neptune-sized and 4 planets larger than Jupiter, all gas giants.  The largest planet has a density of Styrofoam. Welcome to the fold, Planet Beer Cooler.

Of course, this is just the tip of the galactic iceberg.  Kepler is focused on finding earth-sized planets over its three-year mission, and it won’t be too long before we hopefully start confirming tiny rocky bodies similar to ours orbiting around distant suns.  It will keep staring at the same spot in the sky, measuring the brightness variations in the same stars, giving us a wealth of information about how common earth-like, and not-so-earth like planets are in our galaxy. How unique are we?  Exactly how nifty are digital watches in the Universe?

But if this excitement is going to continue for years to come, the American people should prepare for a danish brown-out across this great country.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 2:42 pm and is filed under SETI, astrobiology, astronomy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.