|
2009 Dec 1. Best of What's New 2009—NASA Kepler Space Telescope. Kepler has been named the 2010 Best of What's New grand prize winner in the aviation/space category by Popular Science magazine. 
2009 Nov. 10 Most Brilliant Innovators of 2009: Kepler Space Telescope. Popular Mechanics. Excerpt: ...As president of his Delavan, Wis., high school science club in the 1950s, William Borucki helped build a device—a magnetometer coupled with ultraviolet and infrared transmitters—to contact UFOs. The technology was sound, but the test subjects never showed up. However, Borucki, now a space scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, didn’t abandon his preoccupation with aliens. For two decades, he has argued that by taking pictures of planets as they pass in front of their home stars, scientists could identify likely sites for life in other solar systems. ...He and his colleagues persevered in the face of enduring skepticism from NASA managers. Borucki and Doug Caldwell of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute proved they could capture the images with charge-coupled devices, or CCDs, like the ones used in digital cameras. SETI’s Jon Jenkins wrote algorithms to distinguish small planets from the “noise” of deep space. Fellow Ames scientist David Koch banged together a miniature steel-and-Styrofoam demonstrator with the help of machine shops in the Bay Area. “By 2000, we had done all the things they asked,” says the soft-spoken Borucki, now 70 years old. With the launch of an instrument-laden rocket last March, the mission, dubbed Kepler, became reality.
Award—ASTRONOMY: PLANET-SEEKING SPACE TELESCOPE
INNOVATORS: Eric Bachtell (Ball Aerospace), William Borucki, David Koch (NASA), Doug Caldwell, Jon Jenkins (SETI Institute), David Latham (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
BRILLIANT IDEA: A multiyear survey of 100,000 stars, in search of planets where alien life may thrive.
 2009 Nov 6. Kepler’s Search for Small Worlds Hampered by Noisy Electronics. By Debra Werner, Space News. Excerpt: MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — In spite of electronic components that are creating extraneous noise on board the Kepler space telescope, NASA officials are confident the mission will be able by 2011 to either detect Earth-size planets or reveal that those planets are uncommon, said James Fanson, Kepler project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. During an Oct. 29 meeting here, William Borucki, Kepler principal investigator at the NASA Ames Research Center, told members of the NASA Advisory Council that noise produced by three of the 42 amplifiers used to boost signals from the telescope’s charge-coupled devices was creating image artifacts, or features present in the Kepler data sets that reflect noise rather than an accurate picture of the stars. “Those image artifacts are slowing our data analysis,” Borucki told the panel. “Mitigation work to flag and correct those problems will be complete in 2011.”
That does not mean, however, that Kepler will be unable to discover Earth-size planets before 2011, Fanson told Space News Nov. 5. Data obtained last summer ... indicated that the instrument is sensitive enough to detect far smaller objects, including planets the size of Earth. What is more, those measurements were taken on the channel with the noisiest amplifier, Fanson said. “Kepler measurements are at least 100 times more sensitive than measurements obtained from telescopes on Earth,” he said. The quality of the light curve is so extraordinary, in fact, that one mission official wept with joy when he saw the data, Fanson added.
Nevertheless, Kepler officials say it will take longer than previously anticipated to create computer programs capable of filtering out the systemic noise. “It does add difficulty and delays the ability to find small planets in short-period orbits,” Borucki said. “Future missions should look very carefully at the flaws in our electronic design. Some of the amplifiers we use oscillate. Different amplifiers would not do that.”
...It is also important to remember that the Kepler mission is not a race to identify new planets but rather an effort to monitor more than 150,000 stars in a swath of the Milky Way galaxy and measure the fraction of stars with Earth-like planets, Fanson said. Even when scientists identify changes in the brightness of a star that may indicate a planet passing by, it will take months or years to confirm the existence of a new sphere. Scientists wait to observe at least three dips in light before they seek confirmation of their finding with ground-based telescopes, NASA officials said. Gaining access to those telescopes, which are in constant demand, presents mission officials with another challenge, Borucki said. NASA headquarters officials are helping to remedy that situation by giving the Kepler team priority access to the ground-based telescopes, he added.
2009 Nov 4. Kepler's Twitchy Detectors. By Kelly Beatty, Sky and Telescope. Excerpt: ... last week Borucki told a NASA advisory panel that there's a problem with some of the craft's light-sensing detectors. To cover this much sky, Kepler uses an array of 42 detectors, each divided in half for ease of data transfer. It turns out that three of those 84 detector channels are noisy, and the stars in these areas appear to flicker — not a good thing if you're trying to detect minuscule changes caused by transiting planets.
Apparently the Kepler team knew about the noisy channels prior to launch, but the cure (disassembling the flight-ready craft to replace the bad electronics) was deemed worse than the disease. Instead, for now output from the three channels will simply be ignored, and a computer program should be ready by 2011 to filter out the flickering.
In the meantime, since the other 81 detector channels are unaffected, the planet hunting goes on....
An artist's impression of a Jupiter-sized planet
passing in front of its parent star.
 2009 Sep 15. Kepler and the Search for Life in Our Galaxy. Yoji Kondo, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Co-Investigator on the Kepler mission and Bill Steigerwald, NASA Goddard.
...The Kepler mission seeks to detect Earth-like, i.e., rocky planets in our galaxy within the habitable zone of their parent stars, by looking for planetary transit events. These are situations where the planet passes in front of its star as seen from our point of view, slightly dimming the star's brightness. Since planetary transit events are fleeting, and it is unknown how common they may be, Kepler will continuously observe some 100,000 sun-like stars (in about 100 square degrees of the sky in the Cygnus region) for four years. ...Observing planetary transits is challenging, because the brightness changes are exceedingly small. For example, Earth is about one-hundredth the diameter of the sun, so from an alien point of view, when Earth passes in front of the sun, it obscures only a tiny area on the solar disk -- just one ten-thousandth. An alien watching Earth transit the sun would see our star's brightness drop by just one part in ten thousand. ...Other challenges for Kepler are brightness changes that arise from a natural variation within the star itself, rather than from a transiting planet. If a brightness change repeats at regular intervals, it's more likely to be from an exoplanet, since its orbit will make it transit at the same periods. Scientists with the mission will need to see the same change at least twice before it's considered a possible exoplanet....
2009 Aug 6. Articles about today's press briefing and early science results:
- Scientific American: Planet-Hunting Spacecraft Shows Its Stuff by Detecting a Known Exoplanet
- San Jose Mercury News: NASA announces Kepler spacecraft's discovery of new exoplanet
- SPACE.com -- Earth-Like Planet-Hunting Telescope Passes Key Test
- New Scientist: Kepler spacecraft sees its first exoplanets
- Universe Today: Kepler Scores its First Exoplanet Discovery
- TIME: Kepler Space Probe: Our Best Shot at Finding New Earths
- Scientific American: Planet-Hunting Spacecraft Shows Its Stuff by Detecting a Known Exoplanet
2009 Aug. Kepler's New Worlds. Daniel D. Durda. Mercury Magazine, Astronoical Society of the Pacific (member password required).
2009 June. Kepler Mission Begins Search for Other Earths and William Borucki—Kepler Mission Science Principal Investigator. Discovery and New Frontiers News (NASA). Excellent interview with Bill Borucki.
2009 June 10. "Found in Transit" By Oliver Morton, guest columnist. A thoughtful article about finding exoplanets and how we might learn about their biospheres.
2009 Jun 6. Hunt is on for another planet Earth. By Faye Flam, Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer. Excerpt: Villanova University astronomer Edward Guinan has had some adventures over the years, from scrounging for black-market cement to make Iran's first high-powered telescope to discovering the rings around Neptune at an observatory in New Zealand. But none of this will compare, he said, to witnessing the discovery of the first Earth-like planet orbiting another star - a feat that a NASA satellite called Kepler could do within the coming weeks.
2009 May 13. Articles based on the Kepler Mission Status Report (Let the Planet Hunt Begin) - e.g. NASA's Planet Hunter Starts Hunting - NASA's Kepler spacecraft has begun its search for other Earth-like worlds, NASA announced today. ..."Now the fun begins," said William Borucki, Kepler science principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "We are all really excited to start sorting through the data and discovering the planets."....
2009 April 16 Articles about Kepler First Light (based on press release)
2009 Apr 8. Articles about Kepler dust cover ejection.
2009 Mar 27 Temecula nonprofit promotes model rocketry for teens. By HOPE PIERSON. Excerpt: When Richard Dierking's son Bryan and his friend asked if they could start a rocket club a few years ago, it rekindled the Temecula man's boyhood love of space exploration. ...Dierking was recently named as a solar system volunteer ambassador for NASA's "Kepler Mission," which is managed by the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. Volunteers communicate JPL's numerous space exploration missions and information to their communities. NASA's Kepler Mission is designed to find earth-like planets orbiting stars in the Milky Way. It was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral on March 6.
2009 Mar 20. Looking for Life. by ANDREA DELBANCO, Time for Kids. Excerpt: NASA's Kepler telescope blasted into space on March 6. It is the world's first space mission dedicated to searching for Earthlike planets. The telescope is studying a section of the Milky Way galaxy for planets that are the right size and temperature to support life.
2009 - March. Share the Hunt for Other Earths (700Kb PDF). Article about Kepler and the Strange Planets planetarium show, by Gould, Komatsu, DeVore, Koch, and Harman. Posted here with permission of thePlanetarian, the professional journal of the International Planetarium Society.
First week of March: Giant flurry of articles associated with Kepler launch of 2009 March 6.
2009 Mar 3. With March 6 Kepler launch, work begins for Berkeley astronomers
By Robert Sanders, Media Relations, UC Berkeley News. Also, Kepler in the Classrooom.
2009 Mar 2. In a Lonely Cosmos, a Hunt for Worlds Like Ours. By DENNIS OVERBYE, NY Times. A new spacecraft is about to embark on a mission to find other planets like Earth.
2009 Feb 19–23. Flurry of articles after the L-14 Kepler Press Conference (2 weeks before Kepler Launch), including
2009 Feb 10. Planet-Hunting Space Telescope Readies for Launch
By Clara Moskowitz, Wired Science. Excerpt: When humans look into outer space and its amazing distant realms, sometimes all we really want to find is someplace like home. Another planet like Earth, that is. Soon, a new NASA telescope mission called Kepler may finally make that happen. Set to launch March 5 from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the $550 million Kepler telescope is designed to detect extrasolar planets that are the same size as Earth, orbiting around stars the same size as the sun, at a range similar to Earth's distance from the sun, and with orbits of about one year, like ours.
2009 Feb 8. Kepler Space Telescope looks for Earth-like planets, and life
by William Atkins, IT Wire.
2009 Feb 5. Space telescope to boost hunt for alien Earths. by David Shiga
New Scientist Magazine issue 2694.
2009 Feb 5. NASA mission searching for planets similar to Earth. The Freelance-Star, Fredericksburg.
2009 Jan 30. Earth-hunter telescope prepared for launch. By Irene Klotz. TITUSVILLE, Florida (Reuters) - Excerpt: NASA unveiled a modest telescope on Friday with a sweeping mission -- to discover if there are any Earth-type planets orbiting distant stars. Though astronomers have found more than 330 planets circling stars in other solar systems, none has the size and location that is believed to be key to supporting life. "A null result is as important as finding planets," Michael Bicay, director of science at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, told reporters in Titusville, Florida, where the Kepler telescope is being prepared for launch. ...Equipped with a 95 megapixel camera -- the largest ever flown in space -- Kepler will attempt to find Earth-sized planets flying across the face of their parent stars. Scientists say it will be a bit like trying to spot a gnat in the glare of a floodlight. To an outside observer, a planet as large as Jupiter temporarily blots out about 1 percent of visible light from the sun as it makes its transit. Passage of Earth-like worlds produce a change in brightness of about 84 parts in a million. "This is a very small signal and it's very difficult to predict," said James Fanson, Kepler project manager at the U.S. space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "The plan is to stare at this place for three years and wait for the stars to wink."....
2009 Jan 14. Kepler Spacecraft to Hunt Earth-Like Worlds. By Leonard David
SPACE.com's Space Insider Columnist Excerpt: BOULDER, Colo. - NASA's Kepler space telescope, a sharp-eyed spacecraft designed to hunt for Earth-like planets, is ready to ship out for an early March launch. ..."In order to find Earth-sized planets, you need to stare at the same place in space and look for dips in the light curve," said John Troeltzsch, Ball Aerospace program manager for civil space systems. Kepler initially will look at 140,000 stars, with project scientists paring the field of study down to 100,000 stars, Troeltzsch said. ...It's a very sophisticated machine," Troeltzsch told Space News in a Dec. 16 interview. The technology to undertake Kepler was not available until just a few years ago, he said, "so we really are at the right place at the right time.
..."Using the transit technique for spotting Earth-sized planets by a spacecraft was first suggested by Borucki in 1984. "I pursued this for 14 years ... I did get an award for being persistent," Borucki said, recalling the critics who told him what he was proposing would never work. But time, technology and perseverance eventually won out, he said, with Kepler gaining flight approval as a NASA Discovery mission in late 2001.
...
The ongoing search for exo-planets is an exciting field, said James Fanson, Kepler project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Kepler fits very timely into this growing field by giving us an opportunity for the first time to determine how frequently Earth-size planets form and orbit in a habitable zone around other stars," Fanson said.
...Borucki of NASA Ames said Kepler is a step forward, offering a spotter-scope capability that will support future decision-making about building more powerful spacecraft to home in on candidate worlds capable of sustaining life. ..."We need to know if this is a wild goose chase or not," Borucki added. "We're at a bifurcation point and Kepler is just a step, one step in many steps as we explore the galaxy." [Article also at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28659565/]
2009 Jan 6. Planet-Hunting Spacecraft To Look For Earth-Sized Worlds. By LEONARD DAVID, Space News Correspondent. Excerpt: BOULDER, Colo. -- NASA's Kepler space telescope, a sharp-eyed spacecraft designed to hunt for Earth-like planets, is ready to ship out for an early March launch. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. – the Boulder, Colo.-based NASA contractor responsible for developing the Kepler flight system and supporting mission operations – recently completed the spacecraft's final pre-ship checkout and is preparing to deliver the spacecraft to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., for a March 5 liftoff on a Delta 2 booster.
"In order to find Earth-sized planets, you need to stare at the same place in space and look for dips in the light curve," said John Troeltzsch, Ball Aerospace program manager for civil space systems.
..."It's a very sophisticated machine," Troeltzsch told Space News in a Dec. 16 interview. The technology to undertake Kepler was not available until just a few years ago, he said, "so we really are at the right place at the right time."
..."What we're interested in are light curves over time," Troeltzsch said. "There are no pretty pictures" like Hubble Space Telescope images or Spitzer Space Telescope infrared observations, he said, but Kepler is perfectly optimized for its search duties.
"I grew up watching 'Star Trek,' so I'm confident that there are a lot of planets out there," Troeltzsch said. "If we get no result, that's going to be just as profound."
...The search for exo-planets in the last decade has escalated from something hardly conceivable to an active and enthusiastic scientific endeavor, said Bill Borucki, the science principal investigator for the Kepler Mission at NASA Ames.
...
Using the transit technique for spotting Earth-sized planets by a spacecraft was first suggested by Borucki in 1984.
..."I pursued this for 14 years ... I did get an award for being persistent," Borucki said, recalling the critics who told him what he was proposing would never work. But time, technology and perseverance eventually won out, he said, with Kepler gaining flight approval as a NASA Discovery mission in late 2001.
...Spotter-scope capability
The ongoing search for exo-planets is an exciting field, said James Fanson, Kepler project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
"Kepler fits very timely into this growing field by giving us an opportunity for the first time to determine how frequently Earth-size planets form and orbit in a habitable zone around other stars," Fanson said. "We're focused on trying to find Earth analogs. So we've designed Kepler specifically to detect planets that are the size of the Earth and even slightly smaller."
Kepler will serve as a spotter scope, Fanson said, finding candidate planets that can then be targeted by Earth-based observations to rule out false-positive detections....
|
