Washington, May 15 (ANI): The discovery of hundreds of planet candidates around other stars by Kepler spacecraft, which was launched in 2009, has inspired a new book that combines both science and science fiction.
The book titled “A Kepler’s Dozen: Thirteen Stories about Distant Worlds that Really Exist” is co-edited by David Lee Summers (author of “The Pirates of Sufiro” and editor of “Space Pirates”) and Dr. Steve Howell, Kepler Project Scientist.
Each individual story in this book is prefaced by actual scientific data for a particular extrasolar planet and its host star, based on Kepler discoveries and follow-up.
This gives the reader a feel for the type of sun and planets that exist in these alien solar systems. For example, a story titled “A Mango and Two Peanuts” deals with Kepler 37, a star just slightly cooler and less massive than our own Sun, now identified as having three planets in orbit around it, all smaller than Earth.
To date, the Kepler satellite has identified a remarkable 2,500 candidate planets around other stars: however, confirmation of their existence requires further observations from ground-based telescopes.
All 13 extrasolar planets featured in this book have been observed from KPNO at either the Mayall 4-meter telescope or the WIYN 3.5-meter. (ANI)