(CBS News) The question \"Is anybody out there?\" grows more tantalizing with the discovery of each new far-off planet. Barry Petersen has been talking to scientists searching for clues . . . <\/p>\n
Starry nights inspire wonder, and wondering: Is there life out there? <\/p>\n
So how fitting that, in March 2009, NASA launched the planet-hunting telescope Kepler into the night sky. <\/p>\n
Look up tonight at the constellation Cygnus -- also known as the Northern Cross -- and up in that one slice of sky is where Kepler has been scanning 150,000 stars every 30 minutes for the last four years. <\/p>\n
Natalie Batalha is a Kepler Mission scientist, but she's really a stargazer with a passion. \"We were born to be discoverers right? I think that's basically what drives us.\" <\/p>\n
She and other Kepler Mission scientists look at measurements of the brightness of a star. \"When the planet passes in front, it's going to block some of the light,\" Batalha explained. <\/p>\n
That momentary dimming of light is how we infer the existence of a plane orbiting that star. <\/p>\n
\"There's not much more dramatic to discover than another world,\" said Petersen. <\/p>\n
\"Another world like ours,\" because it changes the way we look at the cosmos, right?\" said Batalha. <\/p>\n
An artist's impression of a world known as Kepler-62f, orbiting its parent sun at a distance that would allow water to exist as a liquid on its surface. <\/p>\n
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