Kepler's First Five Exoplanets

The Kepler team announced the discovery of its first 5 exoplanets today.

NASA's Kepler space telescope, designed to find Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of sun-like stars, has discovered its first five new exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system.

Kepler's high sensitivity to both small and large planets enabled the discovery of the exoplanets, named Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b and 8b. The discoveries were announced Monday, Jan. 4, by the members of the Kepler science team during a news briefing at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington. -- Full Press Release

A series of slides was shown as part of the news briefing. Below are a few of the more intriguing and illuminating graphics.







Images: NASA, AAS