NASA - NASA's Kepler Spacecraft Discovers Extraordinary New Planetary System

NASA's Kepler Spacecraft Discovers Extraordinary New Planetary System

02.02.11

Click image for full-resolution.
Kepler-11 is a sun-like star around which six planets orbit. At times, two or more planets pass in front of the star at once, as shown in this artist's conception of a simultaneous transit of three planets observed by NASA's Kepler spacecraft on Aug. 26, 2010.
Image credit: NASA/Tim Pyle

Click image for full-resolution.
This artist’s conception shows the Kepler-11 planetary system and our solar system from a tilted perspective to demonstrate that the orbits of each lie on similar planes.
Image credit: NASA/Tim Pyle

Scientists using NASA's Kepler, a space telescope, recently discovered six planets made of a mix of rock and gases orbiting a single sun-like star, known as Kepler-11, which is located approximately 2,000 light years from Earth.

"The Kepler-11 planetary system is amazing," said Jack Lissauer, a planetary scientist and a Kepler science team member at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "It’s amazingly compact, it’s amazingly flat, there’s an amazingly large number of big planets orbiting close to their star - we didn’t know such systems could even exist."

via nasa.gov

I wonder if that planetary system sustains life as we know it...