First Data Sets Pour Out Of Kepler

By Michael Mecham

Scientists are using ground-based telescopes and the Hubble and Spitzer orbiting observatories to begin the painstaking task of weeding out the “maybes” from false alarms in the initial data sets from NASA’s Kepler mission as they search for Earth-like exo-planets outside our Solar System.

Kepler’s 28-member science team is now releasing the first 43 days of the mission’s science data of more than ...

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