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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Kepler-11

"Scientists using NASA's Kepler, a space telescope, recently discovered six planets made of a mix of rock and gases orbiting a single sun-like star, known as Kepler-11, which is located approximately 2,000 light years from Earth." For more details go to the Kepler Mission Pages over at NASA.

Incredible stuff. Kepler-11's six planets are all larger than Earth and most are in much closer to their sun than anything in our system. This solar system challenges a lot of conventional thinking about how planets form and how they take up orbit around their stars.

What an interesting arrangement this system has, with very large bodies orbiting in really close like that...some of these planets might be worth a bit of exploration. Who knows what all might be lurking down in the cooler depths of a vast, rocky canyon-world just at the edges of the Goldilocks-Zone like Kepler-11g?