Wondering about wild grapes

Monday, January 5, 2015

Wondering About Kepler

Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer.  He is the one who presented his laws of planetary motion to explain how the planets orbit the sun.  Below are a couple of pictures of this great man:


The first part of this blog showed Kepler, the man but the rest of this blog will be about the space craft that carries his name.  You have all, I am sure, heard about the Hubble Space telescope but how many of you have heard of its predecessor, the Kepler Space Telescope.  It was launched on March 7,2009 and its job was to find exoplanets.  BTW, it isn't in earth orbit but trails earth.  I guess that you could say that it orbits the sun and can be used 24 hours a day.

The above picture is the Kepler space craft and the picture below are of some of the exoplanets that it has discovered.


The more we look the more we find.  With such a full universe, there just has to be some form of life out there, somewhere.

My wife and I are still under the weather but are feeling better today.
















8 comments:

  1. One of my daughter's is a big Kepler fan as she is both a mathematician and astronomer also:)

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  2. It is so amazing how many stars and planets have been discovered in just a few short years. The more there are the more likely they are inhabited.

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  3. I had to look up "exoplanets", I'm actually kind of glad they are not finding more planets in our solar system... I'd hate to think they have been hiding here.
    Finding them in other systems is a good thing.

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    1. Yes, it is a good thing. BTW, they used to believe that there was an other planet hiding behind the sun. Now, of course, we know better.

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  4. Gosh, been without phone AND internet since Mon morning, driving me crazy, im totally addicted. Took the repairman a while to get it fixed, but, he did.

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    1. Glad you got everything fixed and working again.

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