Word: sun
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...turn pulled on the proto-planets. The original models suggested that the net effect would have been to drag the proto-planets inward - and while the drag would have stopped as the gas eventually dissipated, it would have been too late. They would long since have fallen into the sun...
...establishing a stable orbit there. It all made sense, except for one tiny problem: this same model also suggested that a little world like Earth shouldn't exist at all; it (or more precisely, the moon-size proto-planets that eventually assembled into Earth) should have spiraled into the sun more than 4 billion years ago. A star might not gobble a Jupiter whole when it moves close enough, but it could surely swallow a canapé like proto-Earth...
...size planet would be easy enough for Kepler to notice too, and such smaller planets most likely exist. But to be in an orbit where the temperature is balmy enough to support life, the planet has to be about as far from its star as Earth is from the sun, making its orbit about a year long; and that, by definition, requires at least two years after the initial detection. "Have patience," said Jon Morse, director of NASA's astronomy and physics division, to the assembled crowd. (See pictures of Earth from space...
Still, Kepler has had some tantalizing news on the biology front too. While looking for planets, the probe has been taking note of the behavior of the stars themselves. Our sun is remarkably steady, without dramatic changes in warmth and brightness that might have prevented the emergence and evolution of life - and Kepler now reports that two-thirds of the sunlike stars it's monitoring are no more active than the sun at its most turbulent. Lots of stable suns could mean at least a handful of promising Earths - and those, in turn, could mean living company...
Pitch: An illustrated guide to every sex position under the sun...