The Kepler has 'hunted' 1 200 planets

After two years of mission space observatory is located 408 planetary systems
 
 The satellite was launched on March 6, 2009 with a mission to find Earth-like planets (Foto: Especial NASA )

Wednesday May 25, 2011 Redacción | El Universal00:26

The Kepler telescope during their space mission has identified more than 1 200 planets, including 408 located in multi-planet systems.

One of the most prolific projects between NASA and the European Space Agency has been the observation that this year located a system with six planets.

These data were announced during the meeting of the American Astronomical Society where they discussed their progress.

The scientist David Latham of the Center for Astrophysics Harvard-Smithsonian recognizes that when the project was designed Kepler did not think they could find more than three planetary systems and is currently 408 have been counted.

The satellite was launched by NASA on March 6, 2009, travels around the Sun in an orbit similar to Earth of 372 days.

The advanced technological equipment with which the telescope has been possible to locate planets orbiting less than a degree, unlike the solar system rotating at about seven degrees. This explains why the mission has only detected planets smaller than Neptune and none as big as Jupiter.

Kepler's findings raises the possibility that among them there is a planet similar to Earth.

Currently working on the project Espresso (Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet-and Stable Spectroscopic Observations) which will have an incredible precision 'spectroscopic' that provide the scientific community pictures of other planetary systems with greater precision.