Exoplanets

Recommended QUEST Resources

• QUEST Photo Extra: Exoplanets

  Make sure to check out our photo set on Flickr which includes: photos of Lick Observatory; the Kepler testbed at NASA Ames in Mountain View; the Kepler spacecraft assembly in Boulder, Colorado; and artists' renditions of exoplanets discussed in this report.

• Reporter's Notes: Exoplanets

  QUEST Senior Radio Editor Andrea Kissack tells us what it was like to be present when astronomers at Lick Observatory confirmed 5 new planets outside of our solar system.

• The Planet Hunters

  Do other planets like Earth exist? To find out, a team of astronomers from the University of California is building a new telescope in the hills east of San Jose. QUEST finds out what the chances are that there are others like ours somewhere in the cosmos.

• Amateur Astronomers

  Some of the most passionate astronomers don't even need to leave their own backyards. QUEST meets the amateur stargazers in the Bay Area who are making important observations about the cosmos and inventing tools at home to do it.

• Looking for Mars Life on Planet Earth

  Last week, NASA declared the Mars Phoenix Lander mission completed as the lander succumbed to Martian winter and lost radio contact. NASA scientists are already preparing their next mission: to send a rover to search for evidence of life on Mars. But to help decide what signs to look for, scientists are studying extreme life forms on our own planet.

Additional Links

• The Kepler Mission - NASA Discovery

  The Kepler Mission is specifically designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to detect and characterize hundreds of Earth-size and smaller planets in or near the habitable zone. The habitable zone encompasses the distances from a star where liquid water can exist on a planet's surface. Results from this mission will allow us to place our solar system within the continuum of planetary systems in the Galaxy.

• Exoplanets on Wikipedia

   

• Lick Observatory

   

• Exoplanets.org