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drnickbone comments on Quickly passing through the great filter - Less Wrong Discussion

10 Post author: James_Miller 06 July 2014 06:50PM

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Comment author: drnickbone 08 July 2014 09:02:24PM *  2 points [-]

Actually, Kepler is able to determine both size and mass of planet candidates, using the method of transit photometry.

For further info, I found a non-paywalled copy of Bucchave et al's Nature paper. Figure 3 plots planet radius against star metallicity, and some of the planets are clearly of Earth-radius or smaller. I very much doubt that it is possible to form gas "giants" of Earth size, and in any case they would have a mass much lower than Earth mass, so would stand out immediately.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 09 July 2014 03:34:58PM 1 point [-]

I forgot about photometry.