Updates Kepler: Mission news & launch thread

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NASA:
NASA Kepler Results Usher in a New Era of Astronomy

Nov. 4, 2013

Scientists from around the world are gathered this week at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., for the second Kepler Science Conference, where they will discuss the latest findings resulting from the analysis of Kepler Space Telescope data.

Included in these findings is the discovery of 833 new candidate planets, which will be announced today by the Kepler team. Ten of these candidates are less than twice the size of Earth and orbit in their sun's habitable zone, which is defined as the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet may be suitable for liquid water.

At this conference two years ago, the Kepler team announced its first confirmed habitable zone planet, Kepler-22b. Since then, four more habitable zone candidates have been confirmed, including two in a single system.

New Kepler data analysis and research also show that most stars in our galaxy have at least one planet. This suggests that the majority of stars in the night sky may be home to planetary systems, perhaps some like our solar system.

"The impact of the Kepler mission results on exoplanet research and stellar astrophysics is illustrated by the attendance of nearly 400 scientists from 30 different countries at the Kepler Science Conference," said William Borucki, Kepler science principal investigator at Ames. "We gather to celebrate and expand our collective success at the opening of a new era of astronomy."

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Kepler's planet-hunting mission is not over yet. Engineers have devised a way for the spacecraft to continue scanning the skies with its two remaining reaction wheels. The direction that Kepler points will be determined by the location of solar photons hitting the spacecraft. To counter this, Kepler must be repositioned every 83 days to keep itself stable. This method has already been tested, yielding results nearly as sharp as the original mission. Surveying portions of the sky for exoplanets weeks at a time is similar to the TESS mission.

The new mission must be passed to the Senior Review for approval. If approved, maybe this extension will provide an unexpected benefit to astronomy.

NASA: "A Sunny Outlook for NASA Kepler's Second Light"

The very body that provides Kepler with its energy needs also pushes the spacecraft around by the pressure exerted when the photons of sunlight strike the spacecraft. Without a third wheel to help counteract the solar pressure, the spacecraft's ultra-precise pointing capability cannot be controlled in all directions.
However, Kepler mission and Ball Aerospace engineers have developed an innovative way of recovering pointing stability by maneuvering the spacecraft so that the solar pressure is evenly distributed across the surfaces of the spacecraft.

To achieve this level of stability, the orientation of the spacecraft must be nearly parallel to its orbital path around the sun, which is slightly offset from the ecliptic, the orbital plane of Earth. The ecliptic plane defines the band of sky in which lie the constellations of the zodiac.

This technique of using the sun as the 'third wheel' to control pointing is currently being tested on the spacecraft and early results are already coming in. During a pointing performance test in late October, a full frame image of the space telescope's full field of view was captured showing part of the constellation Sagittarius.

[...]

Universe Today: "Kepler May Go Planet-Hunting Again! Infographic Shows How That Would Work"
NBC News: "NASA's ailing Kepler spacecraft could hunt alien planets once more"

 

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[table="head;width=42"]

During a spacecraft operation performance test in Jan. 2014, one transit of the previous known exoplanet WASP-28b was captured. The data were obtained at 1 min intervals. The observation proves the repurposed spacecraft can still detect planets!

Image Credit: NASA Ames/T. Barclay​

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NASA: "K2 spacecraft operation tests continue"

Over the past two months the team has been busy working on a new mission concept, called K2, which would repurpose the Kepler space telescope.

On Jan. 30, in response to an invitation from NASA Headquarters, the Kepler team submitted a proposal to the 2014 Astrophysics Senior Review of Operating Missions to continue scientific observations with the Kepler spacecraft in this new two-wheel mode of operation. The team is very excited about the science opportunities the new K2 mission could enable. We continue to run demonstration tests to learn the nuances of operating the spacecraft, and progress has been good.

The K2 mission definition continues to mature. The mission can explicitly address continued exoplanet discovery, but perhaps of greater interest is that it can find planets around bright and nearby stars. Continuing additions to the exoplanet catalog give us more targets for follow-up observations and will inform future missions to better characterize the nature of these planets, including their atmospheres. The K2 mission also would open a window on well-known star-forming regions and stellar clusters of varying ages, providing insight into stellar evolution. Observations of other galaxies, supernovae and even gravitational microlensing events, are also exciting new opportunities with K2.

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[Unstung]

Kepler has passed the Senior Review and K2 will be funded through 2016, for two years.

Universe Today: "Kepler Space Telescope Gets A New Exoplanet-Hunting Mission"

After several months with their telescope on the sidelines, the Kepler space telescope team has happy news to report: the exoplanet hunter is going to do a new mission that will compensate for the failure that stopped its original work.

Kepler’s exoplanet days were halted last year when the second of its four reaction wheels (pointing devices) failed, which meant the telescope could not gaze at its “field” of stars in the Cygnus constellation for signs of exoplanets transiting their stars.

Results of a NASA Senior Review today, however, showed that the telescope will receive the funding for the K2 mission, which allows for some exoplanet hunting, among other tasks. The telescope will essentially change positions several times a year to do its new mission, which is funded through 2016.

“The approval provides two years of funding for the K2 mission to continue exoplanet discovery, and introduces new scientific observation opportunities to observe notable star clusters, young and old stars, active galaxies and supernovae,” wrote Charlie Sobeck, the mission manager for Kepler, in a mission update today (May 16).

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[boogabooga]

First find of the K2 mission:

http://news.yahoo.com/nasas-kepler-spacecraft-finds-1st-alien-planet-mission-165844564.html

 

[Soheil_Esy]

NASA Hints It's Found Another Earth

NASA has just released a statement hinting that its Kepler mission found an exoplanet that very much resembles our own. And while the Space agency will not provide any additional details until Thursday, many are already certain that "another Earth" has been found in the Milky Way.


23.07.2015

NASA’s Kepler mission launched in 2009 with the goal of finding a planet that, like our own, can sustain life. Since water is an essential component of life, the mission aimed to search for an exoplanet that has liquid water on its surface.

The ideal candidate would be a planet that is not too close to the star it orbits, risking water evaporation from heat, or so far that the water would simply freeze. Much like Earth, the planet has to be a safe distance from its sun.

Kepler has been searching for this Earth-like body in what scientists call the "habitable zone," a region near stars were orbiting planets could potentially support the existence of water. Since its launch, the mission has found over a 1,000 planets, the majority of which more closely resemble Jupiter in our Solar System — gas planets that are much larger than Earth.

However, on Wednesday, the space agency hinted it may have found the most similar planet to Earth yet.

"Exoplanets, especially small Earth-sized worlds, belonged within the realm of science fiction just 21 years ago," NASA’s press release said. "Today, thousands of discoveries later, astronomers are on the cusp of finding something people have dreamed about for thousands of years – another Earth."

NASA is set to announce its findings at a news conference on Thursday, but the statement has already spurred predictions of a new planet capable of sustaining life. Space enthusiasts and journalists have taken to Twitter to express their anticipation over the upcoming announcement.

http://sputniknews.com/science/20150723/1024939623.html

 

[fsci123]

Live stream 12 et

http://m.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html

 

[Quick_Nick]

Kepler-452b! A rocky planet 5x the mass of Earth with 2x the surface gravity. It orbits a star of the same class (G) as our Sun, at a similar distance as the Earth.
It is like a slightly older Earth.
(All info is best guesses by the Kepler team)

 

[Topper]

I ask me, if they can distinguish between the mass of the planet, and a planet with a hypotical moon?

So my guess is, they can only messure the dimming, so they can estimate the size or the "occupied area in km²".

Maybe the planet has 1 earth mass and a moon with 0,5 earth mass or so, which results in the same "dimming effect"

Or are they able to observe a hypotical moon?
[EDIT]
NASA Video:

 

[steph]

I don't know the definition of "cosmically close", but I wouldn't really view at as being in our neighbourhood, as some news outlets callet it. At 1,400 light years away,, even if we scrambled to build a Daedalus-style probe and send it towards it at close to light-speed , say, a centuy from now, it would still be at least 3 millenias , and most likely more, until we get any close-ups and make "contact" with it. And that's in the very best of cases, aside any "warp drive" developments. Would be cool to study it better with telescopes, though.

 

[Soheil_Esy]

Kepler marks 1,000th exoplanet discovery, uncovers more small worlds in habitable zones

January 8, 2016

How many stars like our sun host planets like our Earth? NASA's Kepler Space Telescope continuously monitored more than 150,000 stars beyond our solar system, and to date has offered scientists an assortment of more than 4,000 candidate planets for further study—the 1,000th of which was recently verified.

Using Kepler data, scientists reached this millenary milestone after validating that eight more candidates spotted by the planet-hunting telescope are, in fact, planets. The Kepler team also has added another 554 candidates to the roll of potential planets, six of which are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of stars similar to our sun.

Three of the newly-validated planets are located in their distant suns' habitable zone, the range of distances from the host star where liquid water might exist on the surface of an orbiting planet. Of the three, two are likely made of rock, like Earth.

"Each result from the planet-hunting Kepler mission's treasure trove of data takes us another step closer to answering the question of whether we are alone in the Universe," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "The Kepler team and its science community continue to produce impressive results with the data from this venerable explorer."

To determine whether a planet is made of rock, water or gas, scientists must know its size and mass. When its mass can't be directly determined, scientists can infer what the planet is made of based on its size.

Two of the newly validated planets, Kepler-438b and Kepler-442b, are less than 1.5 times the diameter of Earth. Kepler-438b, 475 light-years away, is 12 percent bigger than Earth and orbits its star once every 35.2 days. Kepler-442b, 1,100 light-years away, is 33 percent bigger than Earth and orbits its star once every 112 days.

Both Kepler-438b and Kepler-442b orbit stars smaller and cooler than our sun, making the habitable zone closer to their parent star, in the direction of the constellation Lyra. The research paper reporting this finding has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.


"With each new discovery of these small, possibly rocky worlds, our confidence strengthens in the determination of the true frequency of planets like Earth," said co-author Doug Caldwell, SETI Institute Kepler scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California. "The day is on the horizon when we'll know how common temperate, rocky planets like Earth are."

With the detection of 554 more planet candidates from Kepler observations conducted May 2009 to April 2013, the Kepler team has raised the candidate count to 4,175. Eight of these new candidates are between one to two times the size of Earth, and orbit in their sun's habitable zone. Of these eight, six orbit stars that are similar to our sun in size and temperature. All candidates require follow-up observations and analysis to verify they are actual planets.

"Kepler collected data for four years—long enough that we can now tease out the Earth-size candidates in one Earth-year orbits", said Fergal Mullally, SETI Institute Kepler scientist at Ames who led the analysis of a new candidate catalog. "We're closer than we've ever been to finding Earth twins around other sun-like stars. These are the planets we're looking for".

These findings also have been submitted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement.

Work is underway to translate these recent discoveries into estimates of how often rocky planets appear in the habitable zones of stars like our sun, a key step toward NASA's goal of understanding our place in the universe.

Scientists also are working on the next catalog release of Kepler's four-year data set. The analysis will include the final month of data collected by the mission and also will be conducted using sophisticated software that is more sensitive to the tiny telltale signatures of small Earth-size planets than software used in the past.


http://phys.org/news/2016-01-kepler-1000th-exoplanet-discovery-uncovers.html

 

[mahdavi3d]

 

[Nicholas Kang]

Learned something new today: FELT.

Kepler Solves Mystery of Fast and Furious Explosions

For the past decade astronomers have been befuddled by a more curious "flash-in-the-pan" that pops up and then disappears in just a few days, not weeks. It's called a Fast-Evolving Luminous Transient (FELT). Only a few FELTs have been seen in telescopic sky surveys because they are so brief.

Then along came NASA's Kepler Space Telescope that caught a FELT in the act. Kepler's outstanding ability to precisely record changes in the brightness of celestial objects was designed to look for planets across our galaxy. But a great spinoff from the observatory is to go supernova hunting too.

Kelper's unique capabilities captured the properties of the blast. This allowed astronomers to exclude a range of theories about how FELTs happen, and converge on a plausible model. They conclude that the brief flash is from a vast shell of material around a supernova that abruptly lights up when the supernova blast wave crashes into it.

Model for the Creation of a Fast-Evolving Luminous Transient​

This illustration shows a proposed model for a mysterious astronomical event called a Fast-Evolving Luminous Transient (FELT). In the left panel, an aging red giant star loses mass via a stellar wind. This balloons into a huge gaseous shell around the star. In the center panel, the massive star’s core implodes to trigger a supernova explosion. In the right panel, the supernova shockwave plows into the outer shell, converting the kinetic energy from the explosion into a brilliant burst of light. The flash of radiation lasts for only a few days — one-tenth the duration of a typical supernova explosion.

The Kepler observations indicate that the star ejected the shell less than a year before it went supernova. This gives insight into the poorly understood death throes of stars — the FELTs apparently come from stars that undergo "near-death experiences" just before dying, belching out shells of matter in mini-eruptions before exploding entirely.

FELTs are about as bright as the type Ia variety, but rise in less than 10 days and fade in about 30. It is possible that the star spewed out a dense shell of gas about a year before the explosion, and when the supernova happened, ejected material hit the shell. The energy released in that collision would explain the quick brightening.

The science team's study appears in the March 26, 2018 online issue of Nature Astronomy.

More info on the different types of supernovae.

 

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"NASA’s Kepler Spacecraft Pauses Science Observations to Download Science Data"

Earlier this week, NASA’s Kepler team received an indication that the spacecraft fuel tank is running very low. NASA has placed the spacecraft in a hibernation-like state in preparation to download the science data collected in its latest observation campaign. Once the data has been downloaded, the expectation is to start observations for the next campaign with any remaining fuel.

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[IronRain]

NASA Retires Kepler Space Telescope, Passes Planet-Hunting Torch

After nine years in deep space collecting data that indicate our sky to be filled with billions of hidden planets – more planets even than stars – NASA’s Kepler space telescope has run out of fuel needed for further science operations. NASA has decided to retire the spacecraft within its current, safe orbit, away from Earth. Kepler leaves a legacy of more than 2,600 planet discoveries from outside our solar system, many of which could be promising places for life.

"As NASA's first planet-hunting mission, Kepler has wildly exceeded all our expectations and paved the way for our exploration and search for life in the solar system and beyond," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Not only did it show us how many planets could be out there, it sparked an entirely new and robust field of research that has taken the science community by storm. Its discoveries have shed a new light on our place in the universe, and illuminated the tantalizing mysteries and possibilities among the stars.”

Kepler has opened our eyes to the diversity of planets that exist in our galaxy. The most recent analysis of Kepler’s discoveries concludes that 20 to 50 percent of the stars visible in the night sky are likely to have small, possibly rocky, planets similar in size to Earth, and located within the habitable zone of their parent stars. That means they’re located at distances from their parent stars where liquid water – a vital ingredient to life as we know it – might pool on the planet surface.

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Source:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-retires-kepler-space-telescope-passes-planet-hunting-torch

 

[MaverickSawyer]

 

[Urwumpe]

This probe is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! Its a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the sky it'd be pushing up the daisies! Its housekeeping processes are now 'istory! Its off the twig! It's kicked the bucket, It's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-PROBE!!

 

[Notebook]

Wasn't expecting that?

N.

 

[boogabooga]