PlanetQuest Update

Laurence Doyle posted a new update early this morning on PlanetQuest, saying:

I applied for the NASA Kepler Science Team and included PlanetQuest as the educational component of the proposal. I proposed to find planets in the multiple star systems that Kepler observes and won the proposal.

So, there will be NASA Kepler spacecraft data in the PlanetQuest Collaboratory (we'll divvy it up evenly) to look for planets in. What is amazing about these data is that the precision will be 100 times anything achieved on Earth -- that is, the detection of Earth-sized planets around Sunlike stars will be possible.

So this seems like good news for both Dr. Doyle's PlanetQuest efforts and the Kepler Mission, both of which are projects that I've been interested in for a very long time.

Now, if PlanetQuest can just get their software out the door and into my grubby little hands....