NASA's Kepler assignment confirmed the discovery of its first rocky planet, named Kepler-10b. Measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth, it is the nominal planet ever discovered outside our solar system. The discovery of this so-called exoplanet is based on more than eight months of data collected by the spaceship from May 2009 to early January 2010. Kepler's ultra-accurate photometer measures the tiny decrease in a star's brightness that occurs when a planet crosses in front of it.
The size of the planet can be derived from these episodic dips in brightness. The distance between the planet and the star is intended by measuring the time between consecutive dips as the planet orbits the star. Kepler is the primary NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the livable zone, the area in a planetary system where liquid water can exist on the planet's surface. However, since it orbits once every 0.84 days, Kepler-10b is more than 20 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our sun and not in the habitable zone.
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