We don’t. My prediction then is only almost certainly true if we define habitable as a planet in a sun’s habitable zone. However, I still think finding a habitable planet, per Unknowns’s definition, is likely to happen by 2020.
If Kepler does indeed find hundreds of planets in habitable zones, that should get the popular imagination going enough for the successor to Kepler to be very well funded. Kepler Mark II in the air by 2017?
Yes.
I’m not sure we have the technology to make that call even if such a planet does, in fact, lie within range of our telescopes.
We don’t. My prediction then is only almost certainly true if we define habitable as a planet in a sun’s habitable zone. However, I still think finding a habitable planet, per Unknowns’s definition, is likely to happen by 2020.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101493448
If Kepler does indeed find hundreds of planets in habitable zones, that should get the popular imagination going enough for the successor to Kepler to be very well funded. Kepler Mark II in the air by 2017?