Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

Out in space, NASA's Kepler mission keeps watch on more than 150,000 stars. Its job is to see if those stars dim ever so slightly--because of the presence of an orbiting planet. Kepler has already found more than 20 distant worlds that way

The hundreds of distant worlds, some large and some small, that are known to dot the galaxy provide plenty of intrigue for the scientists who hunt them. But the catalogued planetary population has just gotten a lot larger and more diverse, thanks to word this week of a newly identified planet orbiting two suns, more than a dozen newfound "super-Earths," and strong indications that the Milky Way Galaxy is home to an almost unfathomable number of planets awaiting discovery. [More]

Dark matter, inferred to exist from its gravitational effects on the universe, is still a mystery to scientists. But a new study says that dark matter could help life evolve and survive on distant worlds outside of our solar system.