It has been discovered that six worlds orbit the sun-like star Kepler 11. Five of the six planets have an orbit closer to Kepler 11 than Mercury has to the sun. All six planets are bigger than Earth, and from what we can tell, they are made up of rock and gas. The years on these planets range from 10-47 days. Kepler 11 is 2000 light years away, in the constellation Cygnus. As NASA discovered wednesday, there are also over 1200 exoplanets in the Kepler system, making it the fullest exoplanetary system known to man. This discovery was based on observations made by NASA's Kepler Spacecraft. The measurements were taken by looking at pictures of the planets crossing the Kepler 11 star. They determined the size and density of the planets by how dim they made the massive star. These results are important because they open up the possibility of a habitable planet orbiting a star in our galaxy!
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
This is crazy to think about. It would be awesome if we could find another planet that could have life on it but I don't understand how these planets could be habitable if they are that close to Kepler 11. Those planets would be WAY to hot for life to survive... right? That picture though really helped to put this in perspective...
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