So, Kepler is up, in orbit, doing it's thing. Scientists expect to learn a lot, from finally being able to see alien worlds that are a similar size to earth.
Those of us who are non-scientists know that this isn't really going to be that exciting, unless they find something that differs from are assumptions. We expect that there are many small planets out there, that have not been visible until Kepler. We know that we will never actually "see" these planets. Kepler is just able to watch for periodic changes in brightness of the star, which indicates planets crossing our view of the star. Based on the period, we can "guess" the diameter of orbit, and the size of the planet.
When we see a spectrum of light produced by a stellar body, we know something of its composition. But, we aren't seeing that with alien worlds. We just see the star that they orbit getting dimmer. So, we'll never know the real composition. Once again, we "guess" the composition based on the size of the orbit, and the mass of the planet, both of which we guessed, based on the periodic nature of the brightness.
In a matter of 3 weeks, slashdot has seen 4+ articles about planets "discovered" by Kepler. None of them have findings different from what we've expected, yet they've all received prime coverage by pop-science publications. This leads me to a new theorem:
Kepler (spacecraft) [wikipedia.org] is a spammer!
Wake me up when we get interesting news.
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