Follow-Up Observations Highlight Uncertainties in Exoplanet Research

The exoplanet business is booming, with astronomers rolling out newfound planets outside the solar system seemingly every week. There are now more than 400 candidates, or proposed planets, in the extrasolar planet catalogue, and NASA's Kepler spacecraft, which launched in March , began piling on Monday when the mission's first results were announced. At a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, mission scientists unveiled five hot, massive planets discovered by Kepler , a space telescope that should in the coming years be able to turn up potentially habitable, Earth-like worlds. [More]

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