Over 75 percent of planets, NASA's Kepler spacecraft found vary in sizes from Earth to Neptune Clarksville Online reported Tuesday.
Kepler staff kept compiled information about exoplanet systems from four years of analysis from the earth Clarksville Online reported. The information was distributed at the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Washington D.C. Clarksville Online reported.
The information verified that the content Kepler found were planets, and equaled sizes similar to earth and Neptune which is four-times larger than planet Earth Clarksville Online reported.
"This marvelous avalanche of information about the mini-Neptune planets is telling us about their core-envelope structure, not unlike a peach with its pit and fruit," Geoff Marcy, professor of astronomy at University of California, Berkeley told Clarkville Online. "We now face daunting questions about how these enigmas formed and why our solar system is devoid of the most populous residents in the galaxy," Marcy told Clarksville Online. Marcy oversaw data examination for the Dual-Doppler Feasibility Study
Researchers identified 41 exo-planets, and the masses or body properties of 16 Clarksville Online reported. This allowed scientists to figure out how dense the planets were, categorize them as rocky or gaseous or both, and tell what chemicals they are made with Clarksville Online reported.
"Kepler's primary objective is to determine the prevalence of planets of varying sizes and orbits. Of particular interest to the search for life is the prevalence of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler mission scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, CA told Clarksville Online. "But the question in the back of our minds is: are all planets the size of Earth rocky? Might some be scaled-down versions of icy Neptunes or steamy water worlds? What fraction are recognizable as kin of our rocky, terrestrial globe? told Clarksville Online.
Neptune was known to have a rocky center Clarksville Online reported.
