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Future Missions to Search for Earth-like Planets
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 07:00 am ET
30 November 2000
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Kepler
mission
 The
Kepler mission has been proposed as an element in NASA's Discovery Program.
Its goal would be to survey relatively nearby stars to detect and characterize
hundreds of terrestrial and larger planets -- if they exist -- in or near the
habitable zone.
The satellite's telescope
would have a 0.95-meter (37-inch) aperture. It would orbit the Sun and study
some 100,000 stars for four years.
Kepler would study the size,
orbit and composition of any Earth-like planets it found, and would also study
the properties of stars that harbor planetary systems. The mission could get
approval in December of this year, or possibly January 2001. No launch date
has been projected. [See
previous article about NASA's Discovery Mission approval process]
Future
Missions to Search for Earth-like Planets
COROT
| Eddington
| Kepler
| Darwin
| Terrestrial
Planet Finder
| SIM
Related
News
Search
for Another Earth Quietly Underway
Discovery
of Early Land Life Points to Stellar Possibilities
Related
Links
Kepler
Mission Home Page
List
of other planet-search missions
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