Armed with space telescope, planet hunters search for extraterrestrial life

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Source: Madeleine Amberge, Deutsche Welle
Excerpt: Astronomers have made a quantum leap in the search for other life forms in the universe thanks to NASA's new Kepler space telescope, which has identified more than 700 potential exosolar planets. ...Geoff Marcy...is the most successful planet hunter of all time, discovering more than 70 exosolar planets, most of them gas giants like our own Jupiter. "It's true that finding a Jupiter is a little bit ho-hum," he told Deutsche Welle. "Saturns don't get me up in the morning, nor do Neptunes. But with this Kepler telescope, we're getting so close to finding new Earths that the hairs on the back of my neck are standing up."

 www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5742970,00.html

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