Can JWST use a free-flying occulter?Last time I heard about that idea it was associated with a visual/UV telescope intended to succeed Hubble. You'd think that something like that would be cheap, but it turns out that it is a highly precise instrument that has to be positioned exactly from a far distance away. It's actually rather difficult and expensive to do.As for the overall gist of your post, I'm not so sure. I used to think that this was the thing that was going to save the astronomers--they would find a planet that was really really intriguing and they would get a big boost in their budget. However, JWST is so incredibly over budget that I'm not sure that such a discovery helps them. If they get a boost in their budget it won't go towards a new telescope, it just gets thrown at JWST, and that's not as satisfying.
Can JWST use a free-flying occulter?Last time I heard about that idea it was associated with a visual/UV telescope intended to succeed Hubble. You'd think that something like that would be cheap, but it turns out that it is a highly precise instrument that has to be positioned exactly from a far distance away. It's actually rather difficult and expensive to do.
NASA's Kepler Discovery Confirms First Planet Orbiting Two Stars http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2011/11-69AR.htmlUnfortunately, this world is cold and gaseous...not a desert planet filled with giant lizards and dorky farmers who complain about not being able to go to Toshi Station to pick up power converters
Was there a press conference or anything? I missed it! Is there any way to see an archived video of it?
Quote from: TheFallen on 09/15/2011 06:29 pmNASA's Kepler Discovery Confirms First Planet Orbiting Two Stars http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2011/11-69AR.htmlUnfortunately, this world is cold and gaseous...not a desert planet filled with giant lizards and dorky farmers who complain about not being able to go to Toshi Station to pick up power converters This planet is on the outer edge of the HZ, so there may be room for smaller planets a bit closer in. Not clear to me how much closer they could be without being perturbed by the binary, but 16b manages to be in a very circular orbit which appears to be stable for long periods.Greg Laughlin used this image Cassini image http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/imagedetails/index.cfm?imageId=3116 to remind us there are implications closer to home: There is still room for small (<Jupiter) planets to be hiding in the Alpha Centauri system. To me, that's a lot more exciting than the Star Wars tie in
Twin suns of Tatooine Taught me everything I know Twin suns of Tatooine Taught me everything I know There's room up there for second chances Singles are fine but doubles are fantastic I'd like to think that there's a star for me and you Spinning round, falling for one another Twin suns of Tatooine Taught me everything I know Twin suns of Tatooine Taught me everything I know Solos are fine but duets are romantic A pair is grand but a trio'd be disastrous I'd like to think that there's a star for me and you Spinning round, falling for one another
Maybe it could harbor a Hoth-like moon? Life could still arise on an Enceladus-like moon (though would be difficult for us to observe from a distance...).
1063 eclipsing binaries, 750 with secondary eclipses,with 150 tertiary candidates from timing!!!Dozen or more circumbinary exoplanet candidates.
The primary star is a slow rotator (with a period of about 35.1 days, judging from the out-of-eclipse variations), usually indicative of old age.In contrast, the level of starspot activity and chromospheric emission (Mt. Wilson S value = 1.10) are indicative of youth. The spectroscopic determination of star A’s heavy-element fraction ([m/H] = –0.3 ± 0.2) is also relatively uncertain, making it more difficult to estimate the age with theoretical evolutionary models.
Kepler Mission Manager UpdateFlight segment operations with the Kepler spacecraft have remained routine. We have continued our normal semi-weekly contacts as Kepler is approximately 30 million miles from Earth. The flight segment continues its run of problem-free science collection, going on eight months now. Last fall season in 2010, we had a problem with one star in the field of view of star tracker 1. It was a variable star that would occasionally dip below the magnitude the star tracker was expecting and would cause problems in trying to match it with the star catalog. Our mitigations of this problem are working as expected and the issue has not repeated this fall season. The mission operations team just successfully completed our latest science data downlink, marking the end of Quarter 11 Month 2 science data collection. Incidentally, it coincides with the 1,000th day since Kepler’s launch in March 2009. Of course, the project team will not pass up the opportunity to commemorate 1,000 days since launch, and we will host a small event in the project offices to mark the date, and reflect on all of Kepler’s accomplishments since the mission inception. While we are marking that major milestone, we will also making final preparations for the Kepler Science Conference. More than 400 registrants have signed up to attend our worldwide Kepler Science Conference, scheduled for Dec. 5-9, 2011 at NASA Ames Research Center. Over 90 talks, as well as over 110 scientific poster presentations, are scheduled over the week long event. The Kepler Science Conference agenda and program guide, at 240 pages, is available online for the public review. We are expecting many exciting presentations at the conference, and the announcements of new discoveries from the Kepler data. To participate, watch the live stream at http://connect.arc.nasa.gov/keplerRegards,Roger Hunter