Kepler Working As Planned

Aviation Week and Space Technology ^ | 01/05/2010 | Kepler Working As Planned

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Astronomers expect significant science to emerge from the deluge of data being returned from NASA’s Kepler planet-finder, now that researchers have had time to verify some of the first findings from the orbiting space telescope.

At a press conference Jan. 4 during the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, project scientists reported the spacecraft has demonstrated the sensitivity and validated the predicted stellar conditions that will enable it to find Earthlike planets orbiting other stars. In their first public release of Kepler results, astronomers reported the discovery of five more extrasolar planets in data collected during the first six weeks of observations, which started May 12, 2009.

“Our discoveries show the mission is working well,” said William Borucki, the Kepler mission principal investigator. “Our ground-based telescopes, and all the optical systems that are required to verify and validate these discoveries, are also working well.”

Launched on March 6, 2009, Kepler uses an extremely sensitive photometer to detect the minute variations in brightness that occur when an exoplanet passes between the spacecraft’s telescope and the star it is orbiting. By continuously monitoring some 150,000 stars simultaneously, Kepler already has detected literally hundreds of possible planetary signatures.

However, those signatures can be generated by other phenomena as well, including binary stars and chance alignments of a target star and a more distant binary system. To validate the findings, a team of scientists is using four-meter-class telescopes in Hawaii, Texas, California and the Canary Islands to detect the planets’ effects on the motion of their stars.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

[rahbert]

We only have a billion or so years left before earth is
consumed by the sun as it becomes a red giant. Not a moment to lose in finding a new planetary home for our species.

[GraceG]

>> We only have a billion or so years left before earth is
consumed by the sun as it becomes a red giant. Not a moment to lose in finding a new planetary home for our species. <<

We only have a few years or so left before earth is
consumed by the Socialist New World Order as it becomes a red giant global menace. Not a moment to lose in finding a new planetary home for the freedom loving members of our species.

Fixed it for you!

[SunkenCiv]

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