Kepler Mission

What is the Kepler burster? Many people applyt even k now what is going on here on earth let solo in space. The Kepler mission is searching the skies for orbiters that ar the same size as earth and worlds that could possibly similar to our take (Site 1). The Kepler spacecraft has prep be over 750 chances for extra solar orbiters and that is just from information collected in the first 43 days of the spacecrafts observations. This is the biggest release of candidate planets that has ever happened.This is amazing just imagine if there is that many opposite planets like earth with human life on it. The Kepler aggroup has found so many candidates, they are sharing. They result keep the top cd candidates to verify and confirm with observations victimization other squeezes with observations done by Kepler team members (Site 2). Us as human existence can only venture and wonder if there is life outside of this planet. The Kepler mission is our chance to hazard out. Kepler launched on March 6, 2009, and has been on the hunt for exoplanets (Site 2).The Kepler instrument is a oddly designed 0. 95-meter diameter telescope called a photometer or combust meter. It has a very wide-ranging field of view for an astronomical telescope 105 square degrees, which is comparable to the area of your hand held at arms length. The handle of view of most telescopes are less than one square degree. Kepler demand the mammoth field of view in order to observe the large number of stars. It stares at the same star field for the entire mission and continuously and simultaneously monitors the brightnesss of much than 100,000 stars for at to the lowest degree 3. years, the initial length of the mission, which can be extended (Site 1). Extending the mission beyond three and one half years provides for improving the signal to hurly burly by combining more transits to permit detection of smaller planets. some other reason why extending the mission is good is to find pla nets in orbits with bigger periods. Also to find planets around stars that are noisier either due to being fainter or having more variability The scientific objective of the Kepler missionary work is to look for the structure and diversity of tellurian systems.This is achieved by surveying a large sample of stars to determine the abundance of terrestrial and larger planets in or near the inhabitable zone of a wide variety of stars. other objective is to determine the distribution of sizes and shapes of the orbits of these planets. Estimate how many planets there are in multiple-star systems. Determine the variety of orbit sizes and planet reflectivitys, sizes, slew and densities of short-period giant planets. Also to identify additional members of each discovered planetary system using other techniques and determine the properties of those stars that harbor planetary systems (Site 1).The Kepler Mission also supports the objectives of future NASA Origins theme missions Space In terferometry Mission (SIM) and Terrestrial orbiter Finder (TPF) by identifying the common stellar characteristics of host stars for future planet searches, defining the volume of space needed for the search and allowing SIM to laughingstock systems already known to have terrestrial planet (Site 1). The Kepler mission has discovered a system of twain Saturn size planets with perhaps a third planet that is only 1. 5 times the radius of Earth.While the news of this discovery is set somewhat with the announcement by a team from the European Confederate Observatory of a system with fiver confirmed Neptune-sized planets and perhaps twain additional smaller planets, both discoveries highlight that the spacecraft and techniques astronomers are using to find exoplanets are getting the desired results, and excitingly exoplanet research now includes the study of multiplanet systems. This discovery is the first time multiple planets were found by looking at transit time variations, which can provide more information just about planets, such as their masses (Site 2).NASA held a extort conference to discuss early science results of the Kepler Mission on high-flown 6, 2009. At this press conference, it was revealed that Kepler has confirmed the existence of the previously-known transiting exoplanet HAT-P-7b, and is functioning well ample to discover Earth-size planets. Since Keplers detection of planets depends on seeing very small changes in brightness, stars that vary in brightness all by themselves are not useful in this search. From the first few months of data, Kepler scientists have determined that about 7500 stars from the initial target list are such variable stars.These were dropped from the target list and will be replaced by new candidates. On November 4, 2009, the Kepler bulge out publicly released the light curves of the dropped stars. Ground-based follow-up studies of the first six weeks of data, reveal five previously unknown planets, all very clos e to their stars, one (Kepler-4b) around larger than Neptune and four (Kepler-5b, 6b, 7b, and 8b) larger than Jupiter, including one (Kepler-7b), that is one of the least sullen planets found yet.Another discovery, not yet understood, are at least two objects that are the size of planets, but hotter than their stars (Site 2). In conclusion, the Kepler mission I rely is the first of its kind that is actually working. The significance of the Kepler mission is very important. Kepler will monitor 100,000 stars similar to our sun for four years. The results will be exceedingly important either way. If Kepler detects many habitable, Earth-size planets, it could mean the universe is full of life. Kepler would thence be a stepping stone to the next extensive search for habitable planets and life, the Terrestrial Planet Finder (Site 3). If nothing is found, it may mean were alone in the galaxy.Bibliography Site 1Kepler. Nasa. Ames Research Center, Web. 28 Nov. 2010. <http//kepler. nas a. gov/>. Site 2 Kepler Mission. UniverseToday. com. 26 Aug. 2010. Web. 28 Nov. 2010. <http//sites. google. com/site/larrygerstman/kepler>. Site 3 Discovery Program. NASA. 16 Feb. 2010. Web. 28 Nov. 2010. <http//discovery. nasa. gov/kepler. html>.