Kepler Mission

What is the Kepler cathexis? some people dont stock-still k in a flash what is going on hither on body politic let wholly in space. The Kepler committee is seeking the skies for satellites that ar the similar sizing as earth and worlds that could possibly similar to our own (Site 1). The Kepler bal swayic capsule has tack over 750 shadowdidates for extra solar planets and that is fitting from data collected in the first 43 days of the spacecrafts observations. This is the biggest dispatch of candidate planets that has ever happened.This is amazing just imagine if thither is that many separate planets like earth with mankind life history on it. The Kepler team has found so many candidates, they argon sharing. They get out happen the top 400 candidates to verify and prolong with observations using other compasss with observations d whizzness by Kepler team members (Site 2). Us as human being can only hypothesise and wonder if there is life extraneous of this pl anet. The Kepler mission is our chance to find out. Kepler launched on March 6, 2009, and has been on the hunt for exoplanets (Site 2).The Kepler cock is a speci all in ally designed 0. 95-meter diam telescope called a photometer or sparkling meter. It has a really considerable ambit of lieu for an astronomical telescope 105 squ be degrees, which is comparable to the airfield of your hand held at arms length. The fields of view of most telescopes are less than i square degree. Kepler needs the enlarged field of view in order to line up the large number of stars. It stares at the same star field for the entire mission and continuously and simultaneously monitors the brightnesss of more than than 100,000 stars for at least 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 prognostic to noise by combining more transits to permit detection of littler planets. anothe r(prenominal) reason why extending the mission is true is to find planets in orbits with larger periods. to a fault to find planets around stars that are noisier each due to being fainter or having more variability The scientific objective of the Kepler legation is to explore the structure and diversity of wandering ashess.This is achieved by surveying a large sample of stars to make up ones mind the abundance of world- huge and larger planets in or costly the habitable zone of a wide strain of stars. Another 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, raft and densities of short-period giant planets. Also to identify special members of each light uponed planetary system using other techniques and determine the properties of those stars that defend planetary systems (Site 1).The Kepler Missi on also supports the objectives of prox NASA Origins theme missions Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) and mundane Planet discoverer (TPF) by identifying the usual stellar characteristics of host stars for future planet searches, defining the volume of space mandatory for the search and allowing SIM to target systems already know to have terrestrial planet (Site 1). The Kepler mission has discovered a system of ii Saturn size planets with perhaps a tertiary planet that is only 1. 5 clock the radius of Earth.While the currents of this discovery is toughened somewhat with the announcement by a team from the European Southern scout of a system with five substantiate Neptune-sized planets and perhaps two additional smaller planets, both discoveries highlight that the spacecraft and techniques astronomers are using to find exoplanets are acquire the desired results, and excitingly exoplanet research now includes the study of multiplanet systems. This discovery is the first me ter multiple planets were found by aspect at transit time variations, which can provide more information roughly planets, such as their masses (Site 2).NASA held a press conference to discuss earliest science results of the Kepler Mission on exalted 6, 2009. At this press conference, it was breaked that Kepler has confirmed the human race of the previously-known transiting exoplanet HAT-P-7b, and is functioning well enough 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 or so 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 project 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 close to their stars, one (Kepler-4b) moderately larger than Neptune and intravenous feeding (Kepler-5b, 6b, 7b, and 8b) larger than Jupiter, including one (Kepler-7b), that is one of the least dense 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 believe is the first of its kind that is in truth working. The significance of the Kepler mission is very consequential. Kepler will monitor 100,000 stars similar to our sun for four years. The results will be extremely important either way. If Kepler detects many habitable, Earth-size planets, it could mean the foundation is full of life. Kepler would then 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 query Center, Web. 28 Nov. 2010. . Site 2 Kepler Mission. UniverseToday. com. 26 Aug. 2010. Web. 28 Nov. 2010. . Site 3 husking Program. NASA. 16 Feb. 2010. Web. 28 Nov. 2010. .