Planetary Discovery

Astronomers have gotten on step further in the search for life other than that found on earth. On Tuesday December 19, 2011, as reported in the New York Times, NASA’s Kepler Spacecraft discovered two new planets dubbed Kepler 20e and Kepler 20f. The extraordinary thing is that both are about the same size of earth. There are only two other known planets the same size: Earth and Venus (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/science/space/nasas-kepler-spacecraft-...).
However both planets lie in close proximity to their sun and reach around a 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. This of course means they are inhabitable but it does prove there are planets of Earth-like size great distances beyond our own solar system. For life to be found (at least carbon-based life like found on earth) a planet would have to be exactly like Earth. That is the same size, same distance from a star, have an ozone layer for adequate temperatures etc. etc. Even though the planets lack the necessary temperate it does lead scientists in a positive direction (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/science/space/nasas-kepler-spacecraft-...).
As stated in the article, Two Earth-Size Planets Discovered, “Kepler detects planets by watching for blinks when they move in front of their stars. Since it was launched in 2009, it has found 2,326 potential planets, 207 that would be Earth-size, if confirmed as the two reported Tuesday have been.” This means that there are still many opportunities of discoveyr. Although we may not have found any little green life forms yet we are well on our way to brushing past the fog that is the mystery of our universe.