yea, theres so much data pouring in, the only way the project will get extended to 8 years is if they can expand on the capacity of the server database they have.
the Pleiades supercomputer, which ranks 7th on the
TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers will probably be maxed out after 4 years of data. for 7-8 years it would need to be double.
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/hecc/resources/pleiades.html
even 8 years might not be enough, because they need atleast 3 passes over its star to be confirmed above the noise level. And the planet to be in the goldylox zone will pass in front of the star about once a earth year. Because the star is in equilibrium with it self. Energy/mass. the larger the star, the more gravity and energy. so the habital zone is farther out. regardless of star size. the habbital zone while always cause the planet in it to stay within a certain speed around the its host star. Baically the planet's years will be about the same as earths for liquid water to exist.
A earth like planet leaves a very small blip in the data and it almost within the noise level of the data.
that makes finding another earth one of the hardest ones to discover. by overlapping the blips in the data
not only that, there is so much data, that they cant possibly look at it all themselves in a timely manner. hence why he was taking about building algorithms that can do the work for them. untill then, they are rellying on volunteers to log on to that webiste you mentioned to help in the search. whatever you find, you can claim and possibly even name.
