By Crewman Becky | January 11, 2011 - 11:18 pm

Hey kids, we found Vulcan! …or is that Vulcan 2, since the first one was destroyed? …uurrr, well, technically when they mention Vulcan while talking about this new planet, they are referencing the god of fire from Roman mythology. However, maybe we can start a write in campaign to have the new planet’s name changed permanently to Vulcan for our own selfish purposes. In any case, we find it exciting that scientists are still looking to the skies, trying to push the limits of our Earthly boundaries. With all the new discoveries it’s just a matter of time before we take to the stars ourselves.

NASA’s Kepler mission (named for the space telescope) has discovered Kepler-10b, its first rocky planet outside our solar system. Its surface is thought to be more than 2500 degrees Fahrenheit (hotter than lava flows on Earth), so I doubt we’ll be moving there anytime soon, but hey, at least they’re looking.

Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone, the region 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.

"All of Kepler's best capabilities have converged to yield the first solid evidence of a rocky planet orbiting a star other than our sun," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler's deputy science team lead at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and primary author of a paper on the discovery accepted by the Astrophysical Journal. "The Kepler team made a commitment in 2010 about finding the telltale signatures of small planets in the data, and it's beginning to pay off."

"The discovery of Kepler 10-b, a bona-fide rocky world, is a significant milestone in the search for planets similar to our own," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Although this planet is not in the habitable zone, the exciting find showcases the kinds of discoveries made possible by the mission and the promise of many more to come," he said.

You can see other Kepler related videos here.

(Source Nasa.gov)