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From the first three years of Kepler data, more
than 3,500 potential worlds have emerged. Since the last update in January, the
number of planet candidates identified by Kepler increased by 29 percent and now
totals 3,538, analysis led by Jason Rowe, a SETI research
scientist.
Image Credit: SETI
Scientists from around the world are gathered this week at NASA's Ames
Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., for the second Kepler Science
Conference, where they will discuss the latest findings resulting from the
analysis of Kepler Space Telescope data.
Included in these findings is the discovery of 833 new candidate planets,
which will be announced today by the Kepler team. Ten of these candidates are
less than twice the size of Earth and orbit in their sun's habitable zone, which
is defined as the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of
an orbiting planet may be suitable for liquid water.
At this conference two years ago, the Kepler team announced its first
confirmed habitable zone planet, Kepler-22b. Since then, four more habitable
zone candidates have been confirmed, including two in a single system.
New Kepler data analysis and research also show that most stars in our galaxy
have at least one planet. This suggests that the majority of stars in the night
sky may be home to planetary systems, perhaps some like our solar system.
"The impact of the Kepler mission results on exoplanet research and stellar
astrophysics is illustrated by the attendance of nearly 400 scientists from 30
different countries at the Kepler Science Conference," said William Borucki,
Kepler science principal investigator at Ames. "We gather to celebrate and
expand our collective success at the opening of a new era of astronomy."
From the first three years of Kepler data, more than 3,500 potential worlds
have emerged. Since the last update in January, the number of planet candidates
identified by Kepler increased by 29 percent and now totals 3,538. Analysis led
by Jason Rowe, research scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View,
Calif., determined that the largest increase of 78 percent was found in the
category of Earth-sized planets, based on observations conducted from May 2009
to March 2012. Rowe's findings support the observed trend that smaller planets
are more common.
An independent statistical analysis of nearly all four years of Kepler data
suggests that one in five stars like the sun is home to a planet up to twice the
size of Earth, orbiting in a temperate environment. A research team led by Erik
Petigura, doctoral candidate at University of California, Berkeley, used
publicly accessible data from Kepler to derive this result.
Kepler data also fueled another field of astronomy dubbed asteroseismology --
the study of the interior of stars. Scientists examine sound waves generated by
the boiling motion beneath the surface of the star. They probe the interior
structure of a star just as geologists use seismic waves generated by
earthquakes to probe the interior structure of Earth.
"Stars are the building blocks of the galaxy, driving its evolution and
providing safe harbors for planets. To study the stars, one truly explores the
galaxy and our place within it," said William Chaplin, professor for
astrophysics at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. "Kepler has
revolutionized asteroseismology by giving us observations of unprecedented
quality, duration and continuity for thousands of stars. These are data we could
only have dreamt of a few years ago."
Kepler's mission is to determine what percentage of stars like the sun harbor
small planets the approximate size and temperature of Earth. For four years, the
space telescope simultaneously and continuously monitors the brightness of more
than 150,000 stars, recording a measurement every 30 minutes. More than a year
of the collected data remains to be fully reviewed and analyzed.
Ames is responsible for the Kepler mission concept, ground system
development, mission operations, and science data analysis. NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission
development.
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the
Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for
Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and
distributes Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and was
funded by the agency's Science Mission Directorate.
For more information about the second Kepler Science Conference, visit:
For more information about the Kepler mission and to view the digital press
kit, visit:
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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