Kepler Space Telescope news

[Rick]

NASA delays Kepler launch for rocket checks

NASA has moved back the launch of one of the most eagerly-anticipated spacecraft for some time, in order to check out concerns regarding its launch rocket. The Kepler telescope, expected by many to discover evidence of habitable worlds orbiting other stars, will wait until March 6 while engineers re-examine elements of its launcher.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/02/nasa_kepler_launch_delay/

[Rick]

After delaying Kepler's eagerly-anticipated launch so NASA engineers could kick the tires on the spacecraft's Delta II rocket, the agency declared today a fine day for blastoff.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/06/kepler_launch_march_6_2009/

APOD: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090309.html

[Rick]

An unmanned Nasa mission to search the sky for Earth-like planets with the potential to host life has launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The Kepler telescope will orbit the Sun to watch a patch of space thought to contain about 100,000 stars like ours.

It will look for the slight dimming of light from these "suns" as planets pass between them and the spacecraft.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7926277.stm

[mickw]

NASA's planet hunting Kepler telescope launched March 6. Before it can find planets, its protective dust cover had to be jettisoned. that has been done, NASA announced yesterday.

"The cover released and flew away exactly as we designed it to do," said Kepler Project Manager James Fanson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This is a critical step toward answering a question that has come down to us across 100 generations of human history â€" are there other planets like Earth, or are we alone in the galaxy?"

More:   http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/090408-kepler-update.html

[mickw]

The planet-seeking Kepler spacecraft has beamed home its first images of a patch of the sky where NASA hopes to find Earth-like planets circling distant, alien stars.

Some 14 million stars are estimated to lurk within the first views from Kepler, which NASA released Thursday. The images reveal a swath of stars between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra that fill an expansive area of our Milky Way galaxy which, when seen from Earth, is about the size of human hand held up against the night sky at arm's length.

"It's thrilling to see this treasure trove of stars," said William Borucki, Kepler's science principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "We expect to find hundreds of planets circling those stars, and for the first time, we can look for Earth-size planets in the habitable zones around other stars like the sun."

More:   http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090416-kepler-first-images.html

[Rick]

NASA's Kepler space telescope has sent home the first images of the starry patch of sky where it will soon begin the hunt for Earth-like planets.

The first snaps show Kepler's entire field of view, a 100-square-degree portion of the sky in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the Milky Way, roughly equivalent to the size of two side-by-side dips of the Big Dipper.

The mission will spend the next three-and-a-half years scouring the area looking for minute fluctuations in the stars' brightness as their orbiting planets cross Kepler's field of view.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/16/nasa_kepler_sends_home_first_shots/

[Rick]

A Nasa space observatory launched in March this year has observed a planet circling another star.

In a test of its capability, the orbiting Kepler telescope detected the planet's atmosphere.

Kepler will survey our region of the Milky Way for Earth-sized planets which might be capable of supporting life.

The telescopes first findings are based on 10 days of data collected before the start of official science operations.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8190123.stm

[Carole]

Interesting, that will cut down the Astronomical night.
Carole

[Rick]

NASA Ends Attempts to Fully Recover Kepler Spacecraft, Potential New Missions Considered

Following months of analysis and testing, the Kepler Space Telescope team is ending its attempts to restore the spacecraft to full working order, and now is considering what new science research it can carry out in its current condition.

Two of Kepler's four gyroscope-like reaction wheels, which are used to precisely point the spacecraft, have failed. The first was lost in July 2012, and the second in May. Engineers' efforts to restore at least one of the wheels have been unsuccessful.

Kepler completed its prime mission in November 2012 and began its four-year extended mission at that time. However, the spacecraft needs three functioning wheels to continue its search for Earth-sized exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system, orbiting stars like our sun in what's known as the habitable zone -- the range of distances from a star where the surface temperature of a planet might be suitable for liquid water. As scientists analyze previously collected data, the Kepler team also is looking into whether the space telescope can conduct a different type of science program, potentially including an exoplanet search, using the remaining two good reaction wheels and thrusters.

More

[Rick]

NASA's Kepler Catches Early Flash of an Exploding Star

The brilliant flash of an exploding star's shockwave -- what astronomers call the "shock breakout" -- has been captured for the first time in visible light by NASA's planet-hunter, the Kepler space telescope.

An international science team led by Peter Garnavich, an astrophysics professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, analyzed light captured by Kepler every 30 minutes over a three-year period from 500 distant galaxies, searching some 50 trillion stars. They were hunting for signs of massive stellar death explosions known as supernovae.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6166

[Carole]

Wow!

Carole

[MarkS]

That is really something!

Mark