So the latest news from the Kepler telescope is that it is expected that confirmation of a number of planets will be announced by NASA in conjunction with the January 2010 American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Washington DC (3-7 January 2010). Read the managers news update here; http://kepler.nasa.gov/about/manager.html

This particular quote from the news item is very exciting;

While operations of the Kepler spacecraft continue, the Kepler Science Team is preparing for the January AAS meeting a number of papers and presentations on Kepler and its early results. Also in January, special issues of both Science Magazine and the Astrophysical Journal will publish 3 overview papers in the former and several papers discussing technical aspects of the Mission in the latter journal.

I bet they are going to be special issues of those magazines because it will be the first official announcement of the detection of an Earth sized planet!!! I bet its 3 papers, 3 example Earth sized planets!! :)

But in the mean time, the science team have kinda eliminated some of the more troublesome stars. Why?.... Because they are too noisy to make a proper analysis for the data.

But i will tell you one thing, this discarded data is some of the most interesting data i have ever seen. Remember the light curve from HAT-P-7b that Kepler used to detect the planet, here it is again;



So when you look at HAT-P-7b, you see the light curve change as the planet goes around the star. The light dips when the planet passes in front of the star, but the light also increases just a tad and dips again as the planet passes around the back of the star.

So here is the site where this discarded data is stored; http://archive.stsci.edu/kepler/

Remember how the light curves work with HAT-P-7b, then look at this particular piece of data that is discarded for being too noisy. This is Kepler data set - kplr000757218-2009131105131, its 838,594 seconds of light curve data i looked at as an example;



I can quite distinctly make out a pattern of high and low rises and dips in the light curve (Star Occultations by an object or planet). I quite distinctly see 3 transits in the image and i think its 2 planets transiting in close proximity to each other, maybe a large planet and a moon of the planet that is about 2/3 the mass of the planet itself.

I'm just using this one as an example, but there are tonnes more like it, 9,000 light curves made public, all discarded for being too noisy. This data is just full of planets!!

Try a few out yourself here; http://archive.stsci.edu/kepler/

John.

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Interesting assumption Johnney...

The first thing I was considering was the refractive index's that could possibly change the appearance of the data's integrity...

I am an IBEX {NASA probe} probe enthusiast...

[that'll teach them little grey men to mess around with worm hole's and our melatin...]

Hey John - A couple of things.....

First of all, I was really excited about Kepler too and was hoping for thousands of earth like planets to be found by now :P. Unfortunately, after doing a bit more homework, I found out that we will probably not hear about earthlike planets for several years yet. Basically, an earthlike planet would have to have an orbital period in the neighborhood of ours. And seeing as the Kepler mission requires three confirmed transits to verify the existence of a planet, there is 0 percent chance that any earthlike planets will be announced in the near future. There just hasn't been enough data collection yet.

Also, with the discarded light graphs.....remember that what you're looking at is a graph with maybe a week's worth of data collection on it (run the math on the x-axis).....if there is a planet where you're looking, it has an orbital period of one day or so (by my calculation). I'm sure the Kepler team knows exactly what they're looking for, and wouldn't miss any planets for no good reason. But I do think it's cool that we have access to that data, and you never really know what you might find.....

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Jeff,
You are correct in saying that Kepler is specifically designed to find an earth like planet with roughly a 300 to 400 day orbit, about the same as our 365 day orbit. This will take at least 3 years or longer to confirm!

But there are several factors involved in what they call the habitable zone. Earth has a 365 day orbit and we describe its distance from our Sun as 1 astronomical unit. But if you have a star that is smaller or older than our sun, and not as bright, then the habitable zone will be closer into the star and an earth like planet might have a faster orbit. You could theoretically have a small older star with a much shorter orbit time and still be in the habitable zone for that star. Thats what i think they might be announcing.

You are also correct about the discarded data, its only 10 days of data so any planet would have an extremely short orbit time.

John.

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They won't have any earth-like planets yet, of course, with 3 transits needed it will take 2-4 years for those. But they might (or might not) have an earth-size planet in a very short orbit by now. Since they are looking for transits, there is not much differentce between the transit of an earth-size planet 10 million Km from the star and the transit of an earth-size planet 150 million Km from the star.
In that case, it would have proved the technology, it is just more likely for a planet close to the star to have a transit, but given enough earths, some will by chance be at the right angle to create a transit visible from here.
So don't brace yourself for LGM yet, but maybe the news will be an earth-size planet (and loads of hot jupiters). And maybe not. In any case, this Kepler is the most solid effort towards finding habitable planets ever. It's not looking for a fortunate find, it will produce solid statistics on the distribution of planets of different sizes at different distances from their stars. If they are there, it will find them, if they aren't there, it will prove it.
If they have found 20 or so earth size-planets by now (each with its 3 transits), it is nearly guaranteed that they would find an earth in 2-4 years, assuming such earth-like planets exist and are as abundant as close-to-the-star-earth-size-planets, of course.

By the way, they say the main mission is about 3-years, enough to find an earth twin. But does anybody know how long the probe is likely to last? Will they just redirect it to another portion of sky if it is still healthy after 4 years?

By the way, they say the main mission is about 3-years, enough to find an earth twin. But does anybody know how long the probe is likely to last? Will they just redirect it to another portion of sky if it is still healthy after 4 years?

They have the option to extend the mission for an extra 2.5 years if there are more interesting things that require further investigation;

Kepler mission Schedule; http://kepler.nasa.gov/about/schedule.html

With all the satellites that are in space doing various things, i still think the Kepler telescope is the most exciting of them all. Earth is our only home, the only place we know life can easily exist with water, oceans, atmosphere, gravity and tonnes of life. I cannot imagine anything more exciting than discovering another Earth-like planet somewhere near by. It would be a possible second home where we could go to live.

I think if we knew there was a second planet like Earth, lets say 8 or 10 light years away, this would drive peoples imaginations once again to invent and build a space craft that might travel there one day. It would provide great hope for humanity!

John.

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I think if we knew there was a second planet like Earth, lets say 8 or 10 light years away, this would drive peoples imaginations once again to invent and build a space craft that might travel there one day. It would provide great hope for humanity!

John.

Bingo. That's exactly the type of excitement the space program needs. This is why I'm so excited about Kepler, and why I feel strongly about SETI. Two things that would help make people here realize that "we" are the whole planet, not Canadians, Japanese, Russian, etc. Nothing like a little perspective to make you realize we're all in this together.

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I think if we knew there was a second planet like Earth, lets say 8 or 10 light years away, this would drive peoples imaginations once again to invent and build a space craft that might travel there one day. It would provide great hope for humanity!

John.

Bingo. That's exactly the type of excitement the space program needs. This is why I'm so excited about Kepler, and why I feel strongly about SETI. Two things that would help make people here realize that "we" are the whole planet, not Canadians, Japanese, Russian, etc. Nothing like a little perspective to make you realize we're all in this together.

I agree Jeff!
The current problem with the US space program is that the US economy is in depression and there is no money, no enthusiasm and nothing exciting that would inspire the US government to put money into space stuff.

But things will change very quickly once governments know that there is a very large plot of land, a new Earth-like world to conquer just a few light years away. It will spark fresh new hopes and give the world something to dream about again.

John.

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Kepler keeps going into safe mode? Sounds like they are running Windows 98. :( lol

Kepler keeps going into safe mode? Sounds like they are running Windows 98. :( lol

LOL....:)

John.

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