The primary focus of the Kepler telescope's three-year mission is to find out how common other planets especially Earth-like planets are in the universe. To do that, it is scanning a small chunk of the sky, about one four-hundredth of the night sky with more than 150,000 stars to look for planets.
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"There's going to be all kinds of weird stuff out there," said Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institute of Washington, who wasn't part of the research. "This is an unparalleled data set. The universe really is a weird place. It's fantastic."
* Obama's really-really-really-real Kenyan Birth Certificate
* Lost Nixonian audio tapes linking Bush, Cheney, et. al. to 9/11
* The recipe for super-duper-secret nanothermite that burns steel sideways
* Lost ballots from 2000
* Lost ballots from 2008
* A tortilla with the face of Jesus
* A piece of toast with the visage of the flying spaghetti monster
* A bowling ball with a hologram of the face of Lux Interior of the Cramps (RIP)
* AXJ's ability to NOT comment at having been name-dropped somewhere, even in passing
* Richard Poe's real hair
* Flavor Flav's dignity
* Britt Hume's humility
* Anne Coulter's humanity
* Glenn Beck's mentality
* Tiger Woods' shame
* The island of "dead" celebrities who, having faked their death, continue to put out "found" product every so often and reap their royalties without having to worry about paparazzi and scandals. Latest occupant - Michael Crichton
* Azathoth's other throne (the one with old copies of "Playgod" up on top of the tank)
* The guy from the CIA who hands me thousands of dollars every year to deny 9/11 trutherism, obama birtherism, the specter of Islamic fundamentalism, and the triumph of conspiracism (is that a word?)
* jd8 23ur 9u2ru29 COTO dweidwr04 du23d sidokdwd!!!!!!!
* The fabled planet of blue vanilla ice cream
oh, okay. No, no. None of the above were found. I'm not sure any of them exist, especially the bowling ball. That would just be scary.
(Well, maybe the lost 2000 ballots?)
They actually found two "planets" that were hotter than the stars they were circling, which is really cool if you think about it. Newly-born planets? Collapsing white dwarf stars? Who can say?
But it's a reminder that (1) the universe is a strange and amazing place, and (2) our tax dollars go to funding some cool stuff by way of NASA. Imagine what they could do with more...
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