When we discover New Earth - a planet we could call home - the question of the 'plurality of worlds' will come front and center, reminding us yet again that we are not the center of the universe.

We love our planet Earth. We should - it is our home, and there's no place like home. There can't ever be a better place than Earth.

People quite often think of the question 'Are we alone in the universe?' in terms of other civilizations out there: life forms that have reached at least our level of technological development.

We do care about planets like the Earth because by now we understood that life as a chemical system really needs a smaller planet with water and with rocks and with a lot of complex chemistry to originate, to emerge, to survive.

It will be the first time that this will be done.

What we are trying to do is observe [planets] eclipsing their stars. Kepler will be put into space to avoid our unstable atmosphere.