Cool Result From the Kepler Mission

[dirkterrell]

I doubt many of you have heard of it but Kepler is a recently launched mission to look for Earth-like planets around other stars by measuring the change in the brightness of the stars when the planets pass in front of them (an eclipse basically). We know of dozens of stars that have Jupiter-size planets around them and have detected some of them with this method from the ground. But Earth is a lot smaller than Jupiter so when Earth-size planets pass in front of stars, the drop in brightness is much smaller. So, being in space with very accurate instrumentation is required to find them.

Kepler is in the commissioning phase but it is already doing amazing stuff. In a a short paper published today they show some data taken on a known exoplanet system with a Jupiter-type planet orbiting a star with a 2.2 day period (birthdays come fast there). Here is a plot comparing the data we've gotten from the ground to the Kepler data (the plot is brightness on the vertical axis versus time on the horizontal axis):

http://www.boulder.swri.edu/%7Eterrell/images/kepler_data_vs_ground.jpg

If you look closely at the data, Kepler has detected not only the drop in brightness when the planet goes in front of the star (the big dip in the curve) but also the tiny drop when the planet goes behind the star (middle panel):

http://www.boulder.swri.edu/%7Eterrell/images/kepler_data.gif

So, look for the announcement of the discovery of Earth-like planets orbiting other stars over the next few years...

Dirk

[Sortarican]

Where those taken with the Hubble Periscope?

[McVaaahhh]

very cool. :up:

[dirkterrell]

Where those taken with the Hubble Periscope?

No, Kepler is a new satellite. Much more capable than HST for this kind of measurement. Kepler web site (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html).

Dirk

[Snowman]

So when are you going to decode their messages so I can build one of these?

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/imagenes_ciencia/starga36.jpg

[Devaclis]

There was a Hubble periscope in Fairplay. I laughed at it with my own eyes.

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

Coolness. Thanks for the info!

Personally, I'm afraid of finding intelligent life (or it finding us). Chances are, it's more advanced than us, and look how the people on this planet have traditionally treated the less advanced civilizations we've encountered. And even when we went to them peacfully, remember the smallpox epidemics that happened to the polynesians? Scary.......especially if they are carnivores like us......:shocked: