Kepler

Something I was watching said that not so long ago many astronomers felt it was possible that we would *never* discover planets around other stars, since it was doubtful telescopes could see them and doubtful that the kind of space travel needed to get closer would ever really be possible.  



Perhaps before the Kepler telescope was put into orbit that notion had been disabused, and certainly is disabused now. Yet the way Kepler does it seems simple now. I guess there was doubt that it could really do this at some point. Finding earth size planets is in the news again. This image from wsj.com has a good explanation of how Kepler does it. The URL is http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NA-BO635A_KEPLE_G_20111220174825.jpg. Or with a PC anyway you can right-click on the image and select "open in new window".