The Darkest Planet

NASA's Kepler spacecraft, designed to find Earth-size planets and smaller around a star has been doing a magnificent job so far.    In the first data release, the Kepler team identified 1235 candidate planets around 997 stars.  A second data release is scheduled for September 2011 [1].  "The team estimated that 5.4% of stars host Earth-size planet candidates and 17% of all stars have multiple planets" [2].  Most importantly, from those candidates, scientists announced the discovery of the darkest world and planet ever.  One that reflects only less than 1% of the light that it receives.  It is a giant gas planet, orbiting too close to its sun star, 750 light years away from us [3].  Detecting such far and dark planet by Kepler is amazing!  The transit method is working like clock-work by the book.

[1]  http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html
[2]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_%28spacecraft%29
[3]  http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/08/18/139745242/the-darkest-world-scientists-discover-darth-vader-planet?sc=fb&cc=fp