Alien Mars Announced

I found an article  that was posted January 11, 2012, which contains many surprises! I think many people will find my summary extremely interesting and informative about a newly discovered planet!

An unknown planet, about 0.57 times the radius of Earth (slighty larger than Mars), has recently been found orbiting a red dwarf star along with 2 other companions, both smaller than Earth.  These planets were found by a spacecraft called the "Kepler Spacecaft" around a 130 light year red dwarf star named KOI-961 and with further investigation from Palomar Observatory and W.M. Keck Observatory, this planet was about 0.57-0.78 times the size of Earth.

Since these planets are so small, it is believed that they are rocky, just like Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. These planets orbit their star just half an earth day- two days away; with surface temperatures ranging from 200-500 degrees between the outermost and innermost planet, concluding them as unhabitable and too hot to support liquid water.

Not only are the planets small, but the dwarf star is as well.  KOI-961 contains a diameter one-sixth of our Sun's, concluding it just 70% larger than Jupiter.  Red dwarf stars are small and the most common kind of star in the Milky Way (approximately 8 out of 10 stars are red dwarfs), so this discovery is believed that this type of star may be the place to search for Earth-like planets.  Presently, only 85 out of 900 possible solar systems found by Kepler have been identified in red dwarf systems.

“When you combine that with the fact that these are some of the most numerous stars in the Galaxy, you realize this type of system could be common,” says Philip Muirhead, also from Caltech and lead author of the paper describing the discovery in the Astrophysical Journal. “There’s no question that it’s exciting.”

KOI-961 is almost exactly the same as the well- studied nearby red dwarf, Barnard's Star, which is located 6 light years away.Since the Kepler found this new discovery, if another dwarf planet is discovered, it increases the chance that Barnard's star may have planets that orbit it.

“If these planets are as common as they appear – and because red dwarfs themselves are so common – then the whole Galaxy must be just swarming with little habitable planets around faint red dwarfs,” adds Johnson.