This Week at NASA: Kepler Discovers Young Planet and More

NASA announced June 20, astronomers have discovered the youngest fully formed exoplanet ever detected.
The discovery of the planet outside our solar system was made using NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The newfound planet is a bit larger than Neptune and whips tightly around its star every five days. The planet is only 5 to 10 million years old. For comparison, Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. So, this makes it a relatively “newborn” planet — one of a very few found to date. Also Expedition 47 returns safely to earth, the next ISS crew departs for launch site, SLS booster test, Orion water drop test, CST-100 Starliner hardware arrives and Rocket Week at Wallops Flight Facility this week at NASA.