Kepler Telescope Reveals 715 New Planets

In addition to refusing to accept that the Earth is more than 6,000 years old or believing that evolution is true, the Christofascists believe that the Bible - written by ignorant nomads/herders in the case of the Old Testament and unknown authors in the case of the New Testament - is the final word for the entire universe. This latter belief requires, of course, that there be no other intelligent and/or humanoid life in the universe.  As with many other Christofascist beliefs, science is steadily threatening this tenant of the Christofascists' fantasy alternate universe.  A case in point? The discovery of 715 new planets that are located in the habitable zone of there respective solar systems.  Here are highlights from a new NASA press release:

NASA's Kepler mission announced Wednesday the discovery of 715 new planets. These newly-verified worlds orbit 305 stars, revealing multiple-planet systems much like our own solar system.

Nearly 95 percent of these planets are smaller than Neptune, which is almost four times the size of Earth. This discovery marks a significant increase in the number of known small-sized planets more akin to Earth than previously identified exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system.

"The Kepler team continues to amaze and excite us with their planet hunting results," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "That these new planets and solar systems look somewhat like our own, portends a great future when we have the James Webb Space Telescope in space to characterize the new worlds.”

Since the discovery of the first planets outside our solar system roughly two decades ago, verification has been a laborious planet-by-planet process. Now, scientists have a statistical technique that can be applied to many planets at once when they are found in systems that harbor more than one planet around the same star.

To verify this bounty of planets, a research team co-led by Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., analyzed stars with more than one potential planet, all of which were detected in the first two years of Kepler's observations -- May 2009 to March 2011.

Four of these new planets are less than 2.5 times the size of Earth and orbit in their sun's habitable zone, defined as the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet may be suitable for life-giving liquid water.

One of these new habitable zone planets, called Kepler-296f, orbits a star half the size and 5 percent as bright as our sun. Kepler-296f is twice the size of Earth, but scientists do not know whether the planet is a gaseous world, with a thick hydrogen-helium envelope, or it is a water world surrounded by a deep ocean.

This latest discovery brings the confirmed count of planets outside our solar system to nearly 1,700. As we continue to reach toward the stars, each discovery brings us one step closer to a more accurate understanding of our place in the galaxy.

 One thing is probably certain - the Bible does NOT provide an accurate understanding of our place in the Milky Wat galaxy much less the vastly larger universe.

The Frightening Number of Americans Who Believe the Earth is only 6,000 Years Old

If one wants a good place to start in determining why America is so beleaguered with problems it might be the idiocy of much of the American populace who believe the Bible and say that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.  As the rest of the world modernizes and moves to embrace the 21st century,  Gallop reports that "forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.”  Why not just get in line for a lobotomy?!  It's frightening and suggests that part of America's decline stems for the ignorance of much of the populace.  True, historically other nations once held similar beliefs, but outside of backward regions, most of the world has moved on to embrace science and knowledge.  Even if the number of creationists is significantly lower than the 46% figure, it underscores the toxic influence that conservative Christians continue to exert on the nation. Not so for millions of Americans.  Here are excerpts from a piece in The Raw Story:

For thirty years, Gallup has been asking Americans their views about evolution and human beings, and the results have been remarkably consistent and stable. Last year, Gallup once again reported that nearly half of the country believe the Biblical version of events: “Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.”

The Bible doesn’t actually say how long ago the account of creation in the book of Genesis was supposed to have taken place. But in 1650, Church of Ireland Archbishop James Ussher used the stories of the Old Testament to calculate that the world had been created on Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC. His wasn’t the only calculus based on the Bible, but it became the most popular and is still influential with creationists today.

And according to Gallup, that calculation is still so popular, nearly half of America believes it describes the age of the earth.

But Josh Rosenau, with the National Center for Science Education, wrote this week that very different results emerge when slight changes are made to the questions that Gallup asks, and the actual number of “young-earth creationists” in the U.S. is probably much lower than Gallup claims.

[I]f Americans are asked if they believe whether plants and animals have evolved over millions of years (regardless of the reason why), a substantially higher number say yes — 60 percent did in a 2009 Pew poll, for example.

Removing religious context and human origins, people are much less likely to say that we’re living on a young earth. In another 2009 survey, only 18 percent agreed with the statement that “the earth is less than 10,000 years old,” for example.

But Rosenau thinks the number of truly committed young-earth creationists is even smaller than that.

. . . .   “In short, then, the hard core of young-earth creationists represents at most one in ten Americans — maybe about 31 million people — with another quarter favoring creationism but not necessarily committed to a young earth,” Rosenau concludes. “One or two in ten seem firmly committed to evolution, and another third leans heavily toward evolution. About a third of the public in the middle are open to evolution, but feel strongly that a god or gods must have been involved somehow, and wind up in different camps depending how a given poll is worded.”

True, these certins have the right to believe whatever they want, but the larger questions is why do the media and politicians give undeserved deference to such idiocy?