Scenes from Space #26

Astronomers are finding new planets outside of our own solar system all the time. One of the projects I am currently working on is called Kepler, and is a NASA-funded orbiting telescope designed specifically to find extrasolar planets. It's a pretty exciting project to be working on - this stuff is cutting-edge science. Hoepfully I'll get to go to the launch, which should be in a couple of years. This image is an artist's depiction of what an extrasolar planet orbiting a distant red dwarf star might look like, complete with a hypothetical moon.