NASA's Kepler Space Telescope , designed to find Earth-sized planets orbiting Sun-like stars, has discovered its first five exoplanets . "The finding confirms that the instrument is working well, that Kepler will meet its scientific goals," said William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center in California.
The existence of the exoplanets, named Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b 7b and 8b , has been confirmed by astronomical observatories in the Canary Islands, Hawaii, California, Texas and Arizona. They are "hot jupiters" , named after their great mass and extreme temperatures. In size they are similar to Neptune and some of them larger than Jupiter. With orbits of 3.3 to 4.9 days, the temperature of exoplanets ranges between 1,200 and 1,650 degrees Celsius , too high to host any kind of biological activity as we know it.
"It is only a matter of time before the Kepler telescope observations lead us to smaller planets with longer orbits, closer to discovering the first analog of Earth, " said Jon Morse, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division in Washington. (USA.).
