* Astronomy

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RE: Kepler mission

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Nasa's Kepler Space Telescope has detected its first five exoplanets, or planets beyond our Solar System.
The observatory, which was launched last year to find other Earths, made the discoveries in its first few weeks of science operations.
Although the new worlds are all bigger than our Neptune, the US space agency says the haul shows the telescope is working well and is very sensitive.
The exoplanets have been given the names Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b and 8b.
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The list of known exoplanets in the galaxy just got bigger, thanks to the first observations of NASA's Kepler space telescope, which found five new lightweight worlds orbiting distant stars.

"I would like to announce today the discovery of five exoplanets by Kepler" - William Borucki, mission science director, NASA's Ames Research Centre.

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American Astronomical Society Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Kepler Planet Detection Mission: Introduction and First Results

Kepler has found 5 new exoplanets. All the exoplanets orbit close to their parent suns. The smallest has a 4.31 earth radii.
One of the new planets has the density of 0.17 grams/cubic centimetre.
Interestingly some of the exoplanets have a temperature of 12000 C and appear hotter than their Sun.

Kepler Planet Detection Mission

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Kepler Mission scientists will reveal the space telescope's latest discoveries at a news briefing in Washington on Monday, Jan. 4, 2010.
The announcement will be made at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST) at a news conference during the 215th national meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park hotel.
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Kepler continues to monitor the Cygnus-Lyrae region of the sky for Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of other stars. The Kepler Team successfully completed the third quarterly roll of the spacecraft and another monthly science data download over the Dec. 17-18 timeframe. All science data collected over the last month were successfully delivered to the Science Operations Centre at NASA's Ames Research Centre, Moffett Field, California. About 110 Gigabytes of data was downloaded from last month's observations. This roll of the spacecraft will position the spacecraft in its winter attitude. Kepler has now achieved observations in all four of its planned roll orientations. A roll manoeuvre is done four times annually, on a quarterly basis, to align the spacecraft's solar panels toward the sun for the next season.
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NASA Transfers Kepler Mission Management to Ames Research Centre

NASA today transferred management of all operations for the Kepler Mission from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California, to NASA's Ames Research Centre, Moffett Field, California.
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Kepler Captures First Views of Planet-Hunting Territory

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Kepler Mission Manager Update
Kepler completed another science data download over October 18-19. In this download, a months worth of science data was transmitted through the NASA Deep Space Network and into the Science Operations Centre at Ames Research Centre. After the download was complete, the Kepler spacecraft was returned to its science collection attitude and another cycle of science data collection began.

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Kepler, NASA's mission to search for planets around other stars, will not be able to spot an Earth-sized planet until 2011, according to the mission's team. The delays are caused by noisy amplifiers in the telescope's electronics. The team is racing to fix the issue by changing the way data from the telescope is processed, but the delay could mean that ground-based observers now have the upper hand in the race to be the first to spot an Earth twin.
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