Kepler Mission Discovers Its First Rocky Planet

Kepler Mission Discovers Its First Rocky Planet

                             Artist concept of Kepler 10b. Credit: NASA.

by Staff Writers
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Jan 11, 2011

NASA's Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of its first rocky planet, named Kepler-10b. Measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth, it is the smallest planet ever discovered outside our solar system.

The discovery of this so-called exoplanet is based on more than eight months of data collected by the spacecraft from May 2009 to early January 2010.

"All of Kepler's best capabilities have converged to yield the first solid evidence of a rocky planet orbiting a star other than our sun," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler's deputy science team lead at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and primary author of a paper on the discovery accepted by the Astrophysical Journal.  See entire article at: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Kepler_Mission_Discovers_Its_First_Rocky_Planet_999.html
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