Tag: Kepler

This artist’s concept shows exoplanet Kepler-1649c orbiting around its host red dwarf star.

Astronomers have detected elusive pulsation patterns in dozens of young, rapidly rotating stars thanks to data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

Twenty-nine scientists working at or affiliated with NASA have been named Fellows of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), the major organization of professional astronomers in North America.

This artist’s illustration shows what Kepler-1649c could look like from its surface.

Thousands of computers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center are tasked with running sophisticated climate models to predict Earth’s future climate. Collectively known as NASA’s Discover supercomputer, they’re now also sussing out whether any of the more than 4,000 curiously weird planets beyond our solar system could support life.

NASA’s Kepler spacecraft was designed to find exoplanets by looking for stars that dim as a planet crosses the star’s face. Fortuitously, the same design makes it ideal for spotting other objects that brighten or dim over time. A new search of Kepler archival data has uncovered an unusual super-outburst from a previously unknown dwarf nova.

Astronomers have discovered a third planet in the Kepler-47 system, securing the system’s title as the most interesting of the binary-star worlds.

An 18-year-old high school senior has won a $250,000 prize for calculating the potential for finding more planets outside our solar system, called exoplanets, using data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope.

This newly-confirmed exoplanet is a massive hot Jupiter that whips around its star every 3.85 days. From the surface, the star would appear 60 times larger in diameter than the Sun as seen from Earth.

This image taken on Sept. 25, 2018 by NASA’s Kepler space telescope is the final record of Kepler’s full field of view before the depletion of fuel permanently ended the work of this historic planet-hunting spacecraft.

While you can’t actually travel to a planet outside our solar system, these new multimedia treats are the next-best thing.

In a galaxy far away, an old star exploded and became a supernova. About 170 million years later on Feb. 4, 2018, the light emanating from the explosion was received by an arsenal of high-powered telescopes.

On Thursday evening, NASA’s Kepler space telescope received its final set of commands to disconnect communications with Earth. The “goodnight” commands finalize the spacecraft’s transition into retirement, which began on Oct. 30 with NASA’s announcement that Kepler had run out of fuel and could no longer conduct science.