The Kepler Space Telescope is finding new planets

The Kepler Space Telescope may find Planet-X also known as Nibiru, that is, if it actually exists. Nibiru is supposed to be connected with the 2012 end of the world Mayan prophecies. As it is, Kepler is find many potential planets. A February 3, 2011 New York Times article says:

NASA’s Kepler is a $600 million satellite telescope that monitors the stars. Its job is to conduct a kind of Gallup poll of worlds in the cosmos.

On Feb. 3, 2011, in a long-awaited announcement, Kepler scientists reported that they had identified 1,235 possible planets orbiting other stars, potentially tripling the number of known planets.

Of the new candidates, 68 are one and a quarter times the size of the Earth or smaller — smaller, that is, than any previously discovered planets outside the solar system, which are known as exoplanets. Fifty-four of the possible exoplanets are in the so-called habitable zones of stars dimmer and cooler than the Sun, where temperatures should be moderate enough for liquid water.about the Kepler space telescope that is finding planets:

Kepler Space Telescope

Two new planets, the first ever that are about the size of earth

This illustrated graphic shows the two newfound Kepler-20 planets shown to scale with Earth and Venus.

Continuing with my quest to find if NASA, astronomers, and other planet discoverers and enthusiastically sharing their findings of new planets with the world or keeping them secret. I am motivated to research these discoveries, because people I know have become so wrapped up in the 2012 / end of the world / Nibiru mania that they actually believe there is a conspiracy to keep secret the discovery of one very special planet, Nibiru, that supposedly carries aliens who have been on earth before.

My experience with amateur astronomers and professional scientists is that they want to publish their discoveries as soon as possible so that someone else does not get the credit for their discovery. They do not keep their discoveries secret.

Above, find artist’s impressions of what these two newly discovered planets, the first ever found that are about the same size as earth, might look like. They are not photographs. These planets are 15,000 light years away where no earth satellite and therefore, no camera has ever gone before. The image was created through cooperation between NASA/JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratories)), Cal Tech (California Institute of Technology) and T. Pyle (probably the artist).

New planets are discovered by the following process:

To discover the new planets, Fressin and his colleagues used NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which noticed the tiny dips in the parent star’s brightness when the planets passed in front of it, blocking some of its light (this is called the transit method). The researchers then used ground-based observatories to confirm that the planets actually exist by measuring minute wobbles in the star’s position caused by gravitational tugs from its planets.

First Ever Earth-sized Alien Planets Discovered

By the way, the new planets are called “alien” planets not because they carry aliens, that is to say extraterrestrials, but because they are alien or foreign to earth’s solar system.

Two new planets announced yesterday!

Here’s another exciting example of astronomers announcing to the world their discovery of two new planets. In fact, this announcement is so new, it is only one day old:

The newly confirmed planets, called Kepler-34b and Kepler-35b, were announced in January 11 online edition of the journal Nature, said Eric B. Ford, UF associate professor of astronomy. William F. Welsh, associate professor at San Diego State University, is the lead author on the paper.

Two New Planets Discovered Orbiting Double Suns

As NASA astrobiologist David Morrison said, astronomers could not keep secret the discovery of a planet such as the infamous Nibiru. The story is that the reason astronomers and NASA are not announcing to the public the entry of Nibiru into close proximity to the earth is because there is a conspiracy to keep the information secret.

I don’t think so. Since astronomers are announcing their finds of other planets, they would also announce the discovery of Nibiru, which is supposed to cause the end of the world coincident with the Mayan calendar‘s end on December 21, 2012.