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This story was updated at 12:15 p.m. ET.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has confirmed the discovery of its first alien world in its host star's habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist — and found more than 1,000 new explanet candidates, researchers announced today (Dec. 5).

The new finds bring the Kepler space telescope's total haul to 2,326 potential planets in its first 16 months of operation.These discoveries, if confirmed, would quadruple the current tally of worlds known to exist beyond our solar system, which recently topped 700.

The potentially habitable alien world, a first for Kepler, orbits a star very much like our own sun. The discovery brings scientists one step closer to finding a planet like our own — one which could conceivably harbor life, scientists said.

"We're getting closer and closer to discovering the so-called 'Goldilocks planet,'" Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said during a press conference today. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]

The newfound planet in the habitable zone is called Kepler-22b. It is located about 600 light-years away, orbiting a sun-like star.

Kepler-22b's radius is 2.4 times that of Earth, and the two planets have roughly similar temperatures. If the greenhouse effect operates there similarly to how it does on Earth, the average surface temperature on Kepler-22b would be 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius). 

Hunting down alien planets

The $600 million Kepler observatory launched in March 2009 to hunt for Earth-size alien planets in the habitable zone of their parent stars, where liquid water, and perhaps even life, might be able to exist.

Kepler detects alien planets using what's called the "transit method." It searches for tiny, telltale dips in a star's brightness caused when a planet transits — or crosses in front of — the star from Earth's perspective, blocking a fraction of the star's light.

The finds graduate from "candidates" to full-fledged planets after follow-up observations confirm that they're not false alarms. This process, which is usually done with large, ground-based telescopes, can take about a year.

The Kepler team released data from its first 13 months of operation back in February, announcing that the instrument had detected 1,235 planet candidates, including 54 in the habitable zone and 68 that are roughly Earth-size.

Of the total 2,326 candidate planets that Kepler has found to date, 207 are approximately Earth-size. More of them, 680, are a bit larger than our planet, falling into the "super-Earth" category. The total number of candidate planets in the habitable zones of their stars is now 48.

To date, just over two dozen of these potential exoplanets have been confirmed, but Kepler scientists have estimated that at least 80 percent of the instrument's discoveries should end up being the real deal.

More discoveries to come

The newfound 1,094 planet candidates are the fruit of Kepler's labors during its first 16 months of science work, from May 2009 to September 2010. And they won't be the last of the prolific instrument's discoveries.

"This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin," Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in a statement.

Mission scientists still need to analyze data from the last two years and on into the future. Kepler will be making observations for a while yet to come; its nominal mission is set to end in November 2012, but the Kepler team is preparing a proposal to extend the instrument's operations for another year or more.

Kepler's finds should only get more exciting as time goes on, researchers say.

"We're pushing down to smaller planets and longer orbital periods," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler deputy science team lead at Ames.

To flag a potential planet, the instrument generally needs to witness three transits. Planets that make three transits in just a few months must be pretty close to their parent stars; as a result, many of the alien worlds Kepler spotted early on have been blisteringly hot places that aren't great candidates for harboring life as we know it.

Given more time, however, a wealth of more distantly orbiting — and perhaps more Earth-like — exoplanets should open up to Kepler. If intelligent aliens were studying our solar system with their own version of Kepler, after all, it would take them three years to detect our home planet.

"We are getting very close," Batalha said. "We are homing in on the truly Earth-size, habitable planets."

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-telescope-confirms-alien-planet-habitable-zone-162005358.html

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Harold S Self
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Harold S Self
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http://www.thepetitionsite.com/49/stop-killing-our-animals---find-another-way/ 

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We had some drama here today.

The biggest part of you people on care2 are from the city, and I don't think you really know how it is in the back woods or the country. Or what we have to put up with just to live here. If you did, you would stay in the city just like you are and never want to live in the country.

From 11:30 A.M. to 1:30 P.M. today, a wild pack of dogs killed (4) four Lama's which weighed from 250 lbs. to 350 lb.. I witnessed the last one being killed.

I live 200 feet from a big field that pastured the Lamas, cattle, donkey's and horse's. I heard the dogs chaseing something but, I couldn't see what it was for a bunch of White Pine Timber that belongs on my land. I was out playing with my full blooded black lab. By the time they caught the lama I grabed my lab by her collar and put her back in her kennel and locked the door. Then I ran into my home, grabed my gun, went back out, and  got as close as I wanted to by myself. The lama was screaming for it's life.

I shot into one of the white pine trees and the dogs scattered but, they had already done too much damage. My cousin and I thought to begin with that the dogs were coyote's but, a coyote has a high note to his bark, these dogs sounded like Bear dogs with a deep mean sounding bark.

I called my friend that looks after Rich Knob Farms, he wasn't home so' I left him a message. Then I called my cousin that owns Little Switzerland Christmas Tree Farm and he came right over. There was no way I was walking into a pack of blood thirsty dogs without someone to back me up. The dogs had already killed two and had left one to bleed to death, and this one was torn up so bad there was no chance for him to survive.

There are all kind of children who live around here. A pack of animals that will do this has NO respect for anything that is living be it human or animal. If they had been hungry it would have been different but, they wasn't hungry because they did not eat them. It was not a pack of coyotes because a coyote will eat his prey, he won't kill just for the kill. They were blood thirsty, they are killers and they are in my community. They need to be destroyed before they get where children are.

I kinda doubt if I get much sleep tonight and again I hope it dosen't bother me. I can't let this crime go without telling ppl about it and that includes everyone on care2.  People don't know what animals are or about until they live with them in the wild.

This past summer we had to give way to a mama bear and her two cubs. She was roaming around everywhere  on every ones lawn & on some peoples decks & porches.

Times are not like they use to be when a person could take a walk without fear of an animal or a human trying to kill or mame him. Today it is a fight for survival in the country, especially when you live in the backwoods.