Kepler Satellite
The Kepler Satellite is a NASA Satellite launched on March 7, 2009 to support the Kepler Spacecraft Mission (to discover extrasolar Milky-way terrestrial planets).
- See: Apollo 11 Spacecraft.
References
2013
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_%28spacecraft%29
- Kepler is a space observatory launched by NASA to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.[1] The spacecraft, named in honor of the 17th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler,[2] was launched on 7 March 2009.[3]
The Kepler observatory is "specifically designed to survey a portion of our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover dozens of Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone and determine how many of the billions of stars in our galaxy have such planets".[4] A photometer continually monitors the brightness of over 145,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view.[5] This data is transmitted to Earth, then analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by extrasolar planets that cross in front of their host star. As of January 2013[update], there are a total of 2,740 candidates.[6] In January 2013, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) used Kepler's data to estimate that "at least 17 billion" Earth-sized exoplanets reside in the Milky Way Galaxy.[7]
Kepler is part of NASA's Discovery Program of relatively low-cost, focused primary science missions. The telescope's construction and initial operation were managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with Ball Aerospace responsible for developing the Kepler flight system. The Ames Research Center is responsible for the ground system development, mission operations since December 2009, and science data analysis.
The initial planned lifetime was 3.5 years, but in 2012 this was extended to 2016,[8][9] partly due to difficulties in processing and analyzing the huge volume of data collected by the spacecraft.[10]
- Kepler is a space observatory launched by NASA to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.[1] The spacecraft, named in honor of the 17th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler,[2] was launched on 7 March 2009.[3]
- ↑ Koch, David; Gould, Alan (March 2009). "Kepler Mission". NASA. http://www.kepler.arc.nasa.gov/. Retrieved 2009-03-14.
- ↑ Template:Cite news
- ↑ NASA Staff. "Kepler Launch". NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/launch/index.html. Retrieved 2009-09-18.
- ↑ NASA Staff. "Kepler Mission/QuickGuide". NASA. http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/QuickGuide/. Retrieved 2011-04-20.
- ↑ AAS Staff. "Meeting Program and Block Schedule". American Astronomical Society. http://aas.org/node/651. Retrieved 2011-04-20. – click the itinerary builder to get to the abstract of "Kepler Planet Detection Mission: Introduction and First Results".
- ↑ "Exoplanets Coming & Going Everywhere pt1". Ustream.tv. 7 January 2013. Retrieved 8 January 2013.
- ↑ Staff (7 January 2013). "17 Billion Earth-Size Alien Planets Inhabit Milky Way". Space.com. http://www.space.com/19157-billions-earth-size-alien-planets-aas221.html. Retrieved 8 January 2013.
- ↑ Template:Cite news
- ↑ "NASA Extends Planet-Hunting Kepler Mission Through 2016". Space.com. 4 April 2012. Retrieved 2012-05-02.
- ↑ Template:Cite news