"It could happen almost any time now. We now have the technological capability to identify Earth-like planets around the smallest stars."
David Latham -Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
As astronomers become more adept at hunting for, and finding, exoplanets orbiting stars beyond the Solar System, international astronomers have figured out just what we should be looking for using the increasingly sophisticated technologies being developed.
Two exoplanets and an unknown celestial object, findings of the European Space Agency's COROT mission, an important stepping stones in the European effort to find habitable, Earth-like planets around other stars. These discoveries mean that the mission has now found a total of four new exoplanets.
COROT has now been operating for 510 days, and the mission started observations of its sixth star field at the beginning of May this year. During this observation phase, which will last 5 months, the spacecraft will simultaneously observe 12,000 stars.
Future telescopes such as NASA's Kepler, set for launch in 2009, would be able to discover dozens or hundreds of Earth-like worlds. The Space Interferometry Mission (SIM), to be launched early in the next decade, consists of multiple telescopes placed along a 30 foot structure. With an unprecedented resolution approaching the physical limits of optics, the SIM is so sensitive that it almost defies belief: orbiting the earth, it can detect the motion of a lantern being waved by an astronaut on Mars.
more:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/02/new-planets-an.html