Tag: Kepler

For the first time in history, humans know that there is at least one planet for every star in our galaxy. Here’s an overview of how we got here, and where we’re going.

The Kepler space telescope, famous for finding exoplanets, has also been valuable in tracking exploding stars known as supernovae.

A conversation with Jessie Dotson, Kepler’s project scientist, and Geert Barentsen, director of the mission’s guest observer office, talking about how NASA’s first planet-hunting mission has contributed so much to the field of astronomy.

A conversation with Charlie Sobeck, Kepler’s former mission manager and now system engineer at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.

Trailing Earth’s orbit at 94 million miles away, the Kepler space telescope has survived many potential knock-outs during its nine years in flight, from mechanical failures to being blasted by cosmic rays. At this rate, the hardy spacecraft may reach its finish line in a manner we will consider a wonderful success.

The seventeenth observing campaign of the Kepler spacecraft’s K2 extended mission is now underway. The cartoon illustrates some of the objects of interest that Kepler is observing for 68 days, from Mar. 1 to May 8, 2018. The campaign has prospects for discoveries among more 30,000 objects in the direction of the constellation Virgo.

Capturing images of our home planet from the perspective of faraway spacecraft has become a tradition at NASA, ever since Voyager, 28 years ago, displayed our “pale blue dot” in the vastness of space.

The seven Earth-size planets of TRAPPIST-1 are all mostly made of rock, with some having the potential to hold more water than Earth, according to a new study.

A system of at least five exoplanets has been discovered by citizen scientists through a project called Exoplanet Explorers.

The Kepler-90 planets have a similar configuration to our solar system with small planets found orbiting close to their star, and the larger planets found farther away.

Kepler-90 is a Sun-like star, but all of its eight planets are scrunched into the equivalent distance of Earth to the Sun. The inner planets have extremely tight orbits with a “year” on Kepler-90i lasting only 14.4 days. In comparison, Mercury’s orbit is 88 days. Consequently, Kepler-90i has an average surface temperature of 800 degrees F…

This graphic shows that a small area around the Kepler-90 system, on the left, has been searched by the Kepler space telescope. Compared to our solar system, where we know of planets farther out, it is possible that Kepler-90 has even more planets. If planets (in the blue area) do exist, they probably would not have transited enough times…

This figure shows the number of systems with one, two, three, planets, etc. Each dot represents one known planetary system. We know of more than 2,000 one-planet systems, and progressively fewer systems with many planets. The discovery of Kepler-90i, the first known exoplanet system with eight planets, is a hint of more highly populated…