Author Topic: NASA - Kepler updates  (Read 275096 times)

Offline stockman

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #120 on: 12/05/2011 08:36 pm »
Agreed, this is exciting news..
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Offline hop

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #121 on: 12/06/2011 02:01 am »
The First Kepler Science Conference is running from today through the 9th.
http://kepler.nasa.gov/Science/ForScientists/keplerconference/

Site appears slow, (they may be getting a little extra traffic ;)), see also
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/events/2011/kepscicon-presskit.html

The presentations are being streamed live on the web at http://connect.arc.nasa.gov/kepler for anyone who wants to hear about exo-planets first hand from the people who study them.

edit:
Full Kepler 22b news conference
« Last Edit: 12/06/2011 04:35 am by hop »

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #122 on: 12/06/2011 06:37 am »
Thanks. :) Great presentation. Love this mission (today in class there was a talk on stellar seismology... much of it was using data provided by Keppler).
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

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Offline hop

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #123 on: 12/07/2011 01:59 am »
Kepler public talk starting in a few minutes http://connect.arc.nasa.gov/kepler (~7:00 PST)

Offline stockman

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #124 on: 12/07/2011 02:19 am »
Thanks for the heads up... watching now..

here is a nice skymap showing exactly where kepler is focused on.. (all the square patches matches its camera
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Offline stockman

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #125 on: 12/07/2011 02:22 am »
nice pre and post keplar planet size detections... smaller planets much more plentiful
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Offline stockman

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #126 on: 12/07/2011 02:23 am »
totals as of december
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Offline stockman

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #127 on: 12/07/2011 02:25 am »
size relationships
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Offline stockman

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #128 on: 12/07/2011 02:29 am »
habitable plot
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Offline stockman

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #129 on: 12/07/2011 02:31 am »
specific plots of planets
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Offline stockman

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #130 on: 12/07/2011 02:33 am »
specific planets now...keplar10b
« Last Edit: 12/07/2011 02:34 am by stockman »
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Offline stockman

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #131 on: 12/07/2011 02:36 am »
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Offline stockman

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #132 on: 12/07/2011 02:47 am »
Kepler 11 system - 6 planets identified in this system
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Offline stockman

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #133 on: 12/07/2011 02:51 am »
kepler 22 - planet in the habital zone
« Last Edit: 12/07/2011 02:53 am by stockman »
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Offline stockman

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #134 on: 12/07/2011 02:52 am »
current planets in the habital zone
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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #135 on: 12/07/2011 02:55 am »
locations in keplers field of view
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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #136 on: 12/07/2011 02:58 am »
Q&A now...presentation over... very good
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Offline Bubbinski

Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #137 on: 12/20/2011 01:02 am »
More planets found by Kepler:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/dec/HQ_M11-254_Kepler_Update.html

They've got someone who's listed as the "director of the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington" as a presenter - maybe they've found an earth sized planet?
« Last Edit: 12/20/2011 01:03 am by Bubbinski »
I'll even excitedly look forward to "flags and footprints" and suborbital missions. Just fly...somewhere.

Offline Bubbinski

Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #138 on: 12/20/2011 06:12 pm »
Kepler found 2 earth sized planets around another star.  One smaller than earth and one only a smidgen bigger.  They're too hot for life but they are there.  Can't post a link from my mobile but check the nasa.gov site.
I'll even excitedly look forward to "flags and footprints" and suborbital missions. Just fly...somewhere.

Offline stockman

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Re: NASA - Kepler updates
« Reply #139 on: 12/20/2011 06:19 pm »
Kepler found 2 earth sized planets around another star.  One smaller than earth and one only a smidgen bigger.  They're too hot for life but they are there.  Can't post a link from my mobile but check the nasa.gov site.



http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepler-20-system.html


NASA Discovers First Earth-size Planets Beyond Our Solar System12.20.11 

MOFFET FIELD, Calif. -- NASA's Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system. The planets, called Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are too close to their star to be in the so-called habitable zone where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface, but they are the smallest exoplanets ever confirmed around a star like our sun.

The discovery marks the next important milestone in the ultimate search for planets like Earth. The new planets are thought to be rocky. Kepler-20e is slightly smaller than Venus, measuring 0.87 times the radius of Earth. Kepler-20f is a bit larger than Earth, measuring 1.03 times its radius. Both planets reside in a five-planet system called Kepler-20, approximately 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra.

Kepler-20e orbits its parent star every 6.1 days and Kepler-20f every 19.6 days. These short orbital periods mean very hot, inhospitable worlds. Kepler-20f, at 800 degrees Fahrenheit, is similar to an average day on the planet Mercury. The surface temperature of Kepler-20e, at more than 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, would melt glass.

“The primary goal of the Kepler mission is to find Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone," said Francois Fressin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., lead author of a new study published in the journal Nature. "This discovery demonstrates for the first time that Earth-size planets exist around other stars, and that we are able to detect them.”

The Kepler-20 system includes three other planets that are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. Kepler-20b, the closest planet, Kepler-20c, the third planet, and Kepler-20d, the fifth planet, orbit their star every 3.7, 10.9 and 77.6 days. All five planets have orbits lying roughly within Mercury's orbit in our solar system. The host star belongs to the same G-type class as our sun, although it is slightly smaller and cooler.

The system has an unexpected arrangement. In our solar system, small, rocky worlds orbit close to the sun and large, gaseous worlds orbit farther out. In comparison, the planets of Kepler-20 are organized in alternating size: large, small, large, small and large.

"The Kepler data are showing us some planetary systems have arrangements of planets very different from that seen in our solar system," said Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist and Kepler science team member at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "The analysis of Kepler data continue to reveal new insights about the diversity of planets and planetary systems within our galaxy."

Scientists are not certain how the system evolved but they do not think the planets formed in their existing locations. They theorize the planets formed farther from their star and then migrated inward, likely through interactions with the disk of material from which they originated. This allowed the worlds to maintain their regular spacing despite alternating sizes.

The Kepler space telescope detects planets and planet candidates by measuring dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars to search for planets crossing in front, or transiting, their stars. The Kepler science team requires at least three transits to verify a signal as a planet.

The Kepler science team uses ground-based telescopes and the Spitzer Space Telescope to review observations on planet candidates the spacecraft finds. The star field Kepler observes in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra can be seen only from ground-based observatories in spring through early fall. The data from these other observations help determine which candidates can be validated as planets.

To validate Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, astronomers used a computer program called Blender, which runs simulations to help rule out other astrophysical phenomena masquerading as a planet.

On Dec. 5 the team announced the discovery of Kepler-22b in the habitable zone of its parent star. It is likely to be too large to have a rocky surface. While Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f are Earth-size, they are too close to their parent star to have liquid water on the surface.

"In the cosmic game of hide and seek, finding planets with just the right size and just the right temperature seems only a matter of time," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler deputy science team lead and professor of astronomy and physics at San Jose State University. "We are on the edge of our seats knowing that Kepler's most anticipated discoveries are still to come."

NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. JPL managed the Kepler mission's development.

Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.

For more information about the Kepler mission and to view the digital press kit, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler
« Last Edit: 12/20/2011 06:22 pm by stockman »
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