The Kepler Telescope, which was launched on March 6th and has not even gone into full scientific operation yet, has already made a discovery.
According to this CNN report, the telescope has reported that "a planet orbiting a distant star has an atmosphere, shows only one side to its sun and is so hot it glows." This is not a new planet to us, but the Kepler Telescope has given us new information about its strange temperature - extremely hot and hotter on one side than the other. Kind of reminds me of the movie "Pitch Black."
According to NASA:
The planet used in the test, a giant gas planet about the size of Jupiter, orbits a star called HAT P-7 in just 2.2 days and is 26 times closer than Earth is to the sun, according to NASA. It is called an exoplanet because it orbits a star outside the solar system.
image courtesy of NASA
The purpose of the Kepler Mission is to explore the structure of planetary systems with one goal being to search for habitable planets. How cool is that?
