NASA : Kepler Confirma Más de 100 Exoplanetas Descubiertos Durante su Misión K2

https://www.lanasa.net/

19.07.16.- Un equipo internacional de astrónomos ha descubierto y confirmado un tesoro escondido de nuevos mundos usando la nave espacial Kepler de la NASA en su misión K2. Entre los resultados de recuento de 197 candidatos iniciales a planeta, los científicos han confirmado 104 planetas fuera de nuestro sistema solar. Entre los confirmados está un sistema planetario que comprende cuatro planetas prometedores que podrían ser rocosos.

Los planetas, todos entre el 20 y el 50 por ciento más grandes que la Tierra por su diámetro, están en órbita alrededor de la estrella enana M K2-72, descubierta a 181 años luz de distancia en la dirección de la constelación de Acuario. La estrella anfitriona tiene menos de la mitad del tamaño del Sol y es menos brillante. Los períodos orbitales de los planetas van de cinco y medio a 24 días, y dos de ellos pueden experimentar niveles de radiación de su estrella comparables a los de la Tierra. A pesar de sus órbitas cercanas - más cerca que la órbita de Mercurio alrededor del Sol - la posibilidad de que pudiese surgir la vida en un planeta alrededor de una estrella como tal no se puede descartar, según el autor principal Crossfield, del Laboratorio Lunar y Planetario de la Universidad de Arizona.

Los investigadores lograron esta extraordinaria "redada" de exoplanetas mediante la combinación de datos con las observaciones de telescopios basados en tierra, incluyendo el telescopio Gemini Norte y el Observatorio WM Keck en Hawai, el Automated Planet Finder de la Universidad de Observatorios de California, y el gran Telescopio binocular operado por la Universidad de Arizona.

 Tanto Kepler como su misión K2 descubren nuevos planetas mediante la medición de la disminución sutil en el brillo de una estrella causada por un planeta que pasa por delante de su estrella. La misión inicial Kepler estudió sólo un trozo de cielo en el hemisferio norte, determinando la frecuencia de planetas cuyo tamaño y temperatura podrían ser similares a la Tierra orbitando estrellas similares a nuestro Sol. En la asignación extendida de la nave espacial en 2013, perdió capacidad de observar con precisión en su área original, pero se amplió su zona de estudio dando una segunda vida al telescopio, que se está demostrando ser científicamente fructífera.

Después de la revisión, Kepler comenzó su misión K2, que ha proporcionado un campo de vista de la eclíptica con mayores oportunidades para observatorios terrestres en los hemisferios norte y sur. Además, la misión K2 está totalmente impulsada por la comunidad con todos los objetivos propuestos por la comunidad científica.

Gracias al telescopio espacial Kepler los científicos han podido confirmar más de 100 exoplanetas descubiertos durante su Misión K2. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

 

Ya que cubre más del cielo, la misión K2 es capaz de observar una mayor fracción de estrellas más frías y más pequeñas de tipo enanas rojas, y debido a que este tipo de estrellas son mucho más comunes en la Vía Láctea que las estrellas similares al Sol, las estrellas cercanas predominantemente son enanas rojas.

"Una analogía sería decir que Kepler realizó un estudio demográfico, mientras que la misión K2 se centra en las estrellas brillantes cercanas con diferentes tipos de planetas", dijo Ian Crossfield. "La misión K2 nos permite aumentar el número de estrellas rojas pequeñas en un factor de 20, lo que aumenta significativamente el número de estrellas."

Para validar planetas candidatos identificados por K2, los investigadores obtuvieron imágenes de alta resolución de las estrellas que albergan planetas, así como la espectroscopia óptica de alta resolución. Mediante la dispersión de la luz estelar como a través de un prisma, los espectrógrafos permiten a los investigadores inferir las propiedades físicas de una estrella - tales como la masa, el radio y la temperatura - a partir de las cuales las propiedades de los planetas que orbitan alrededor de ella se pueden deducir.

Estas observaciones representan un escalón natural a partir de la misión K2 a otras misiones de exoplanetas próximas de la NASA como la próxima misión del Telescopio Espacial James Webb.

"Esta lista abundante de exoplanetas validados de la misión K2 destaca el hecho de que el examen selectivo de las estrellas brillantes y las estrellas cercanas a lo largo de la eclíptica está proporcionando muchos nuevos planetas interesantes," dijo Steve Howell, científico del proyecto para la misión K2 en el Centro de Investigación Ames de la NASA en Moffett Field, California. "Estos objetivos permiten facilidades a la comunidad astronómica de seguimiento y caracterización, proporcionando algunas joyas para el primer estudio que realizará el futuro Telescopio Espacial James Webb, que tal vez podría decirnos algo acerca de las atmósferas de estos planetas."

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Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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NASA : Mission Manager Update: K2 continues to shine .- Gestor de actualizaciones Misión: K2 sigue brillando

Hola amigos : A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., hemos recibido información de la Agencia Espacial NASA, sobre las investigaciones que está logrando al misión de Kepler 2;  NASA , nos dice: Pues bien, la búsqueda de los datos de Kepler ha continuado y ahora está en la recta final. En julio pasado anunciamos Kepler-452b, un planeta más años mayor que la Tierra, pero que orbita alrededor de una estrella muy similar a nuestro sol y que ha gastado miles de millones de años en su zona habitable. Kepler-452b se une al grupo muy interesante y cada vez mayor de exoplanetas-tamaño de la Tierra cerca - planetas que orbitan otros soles - que son menos del doble del tamaño de la Tierra y que residen en la zona habitable de su sol, que es la distancia de la estrella donde el agua líquida podría reunir en la superficie.

More information....

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/kepler/mission-manager-update-k2-continues-to-shine

Mission Manager Update: K2 continues to shine

It’s been nine months since my last report, so what has the mission been up to?

Well, the search of the Kepler data has continued and is now in the home stretch. Last July we announced Kepler-452b, an older, larger planet than Earth, but one that orbits a star very much like our sun and has spent billions of years in its habitable zone. Kepler-452b joins the very interesting and growing group of near-Earth-size exoplanets – planets that orbit other suns – that are less than twice the size of Earth and reside in their sun's habitable zone which is the distance from the star where liquid water might pool on the surface.

Also in July, we released our second-to-last exoplanet catalog, increasing the total number of candidates to more than 4,600, and added 12 small potentially rocky candidates in the habitable zone. This penultimate catalog was also noteworthy for being our first fully automated catalog, turning over the task of vetting potential exoplanets to software. Because it is so much faster, it means that for the first time, we were able to go back and reassess all the data from the mission, and to do so uniformly. And now we’re on the last lap, doing our final evaluation of the data to deliver the final mission catalog, which is anticipated early next year. Of course, the list of exoplanets will continue to grow as other observers and other missions take the baton and continue to expand the frontier.

To that end, our new K2 mission has been a smashing success! The spacecraft has operated beautifully, with scarcely a whiff of trouble. As part of our K2 mission strategy, we’ve relaxed the fault or sensitivity limits and taken on a bit more risk so that we wouldn’t have to interrupt the observing to correct minor issues. In response, the spacecraft appears to have rewarded our trust by operating more smoothly than it has at any other time in its history. As a result, the ground crew has had time to look for additional improvements. Since we began the K2 mission, we have improved the pointing, increased the duration of observations and increased the number of targets observed – all while spending less fuel than we expected. We now project that the spacecraft may have enough fuel to operate for nearly another three years!

Now we are preparing to embark on a new experiment, turning the spacecraft around and pointing the telescope in the forward velocity vector, where, instead of looking towards where it’s been, it will look in the direction of where it’s going. This special maneuver has the detriment of letting the Earth move through its field of view and putting a lot of light into the telescope, but it will let us look near the central bulge of our galaxy while ground-based observatories do the same thing, at the same instant. This unique coordinated observing lets astronomers look for exoplanets and other dark bodies by taking advantage of their ability to act as a gravitational lens, focusing the light of a background star and temporarily causing that star to brighten. This approach has been successfully used to detect exoplanets from the ground, but doing it simultaneously from the ground and a spacecraft fifty million miles from Earth will allow astronomers to determine the distance to these bodies using parallax – the effect whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from a different position. Calculations around this process can reveal the mass of found exoplanets. This special microlensing observing period or campaign will begin in April and end in July. During this time telescopes around the world will focus on a specific patch of sky in a joint effort to demonstrate the power of this technique, which will also be used by NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, or WFIRST mission, planned to launch in the mid-2020s.

Meanwhile, the K2 mission, with its superb photometry applied to the ecliptic – the orbital path traveled around the sun by the planets of our solar system and the location of the zodiac – is opening the door to new scientific discoveries. In November, the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network hosted a K2 science conference attended by nearly 200 scientists from around the world. Presentations described the science being conducted with K2 data from exoplanets to stellar physics to supernovae and black holes. We are seeing an explosion of scientific interest in the K2 mission, with a new generation of researchers coming to the forefront. Already K2 is starting to make a significant contribution to the number of exoplanets known, and is finding them closer to home than those discovered by Kepler, and around brighter stars that provide enough light to make them candidates for probing their atmospheres. The promise of the mission is extensive.

With the fuel savings achieved, the K2 mission has been invited to propose for a mission extension through the process of NASA’s astrophysics division’s senior review of operating missions.

To give a sense of the improvements that have been made since the start of the K2 mission, consider that we initially hoped to observe 10,000 target stars in each campaign, and we are now averaging nearly 30,000. And that we have balanced the spacecraft against the solar pressure so well that we can see a change in it's pointing when transmitting data from its back-up antenna. Just think about that for a moment. This spacecraft, as big and heavy as an SUV, turns slightly just because we change the broadcasting antenna! This is like having your car begin to turn because of the blinking of your turn signal!

Finally, since my last report, we marked the retirement of the Kepler principal investigator, William Borucki, for whom we have so much to thank, and celebrated the 20^th anniversary of the discovery of the first exoplanet. We have come a long way in the last 20 years, and with Kepler’s success we are riding the K2 mission into new territory. 

Regards,
Charlie Sobeck​
Kepler and K2 mission manager
NASA's Ames Research Center

Last Updated: March 11, 2016

Editor: Michele Johnson

Tags:  Ames Research Center, Distant Planets, Kepler and K2, Stars,

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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NASA : NASA's K2 mission: The Kepler Space Telescope's Second Chance to Shine.- misión de la NASA K2: la segunda oportunidad del telescopio espacial Kepler de brillar

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., hemos recibido información de la Agencia Espacial NASA, los trabajos que está haciendo al Telescopio Espacial Kepler en la investigación de detectar algún exoplaneta que reúna las características de La Tierra: que pueda tener vida, las investigadores espaciales tienen esperanzas que la Misión Kepker2.....

Los ingenieros apiñados en torno a una pantalla de telemetría, y el ambiente era tenso. Estaban viendo flujos de datos desde una nave espacial paralizado más de 50 millones de millas de distancia - tan lejos que incluso a la velocidad de la luz, se tardó casi nueve minutos para una señal viaje a la nave espacial y atrás.

La NASA, piensa que:

Los descubrimientos en rollo

Un poco más de dos años después del momento de tensión para los ingenieros de bolas, K2 ha cumplido su promesa con una amplitud de descubrimientos. Continuando con el legado exoplaneta-caza, K2 ha descubierto más de tres docenas de exoplanetas y con más de 250 candidatos en espera de confirmación. Un puñado de estos mundos son estrellas cercano a la Tierra y la órbita de tamaño que son brillantes y relativamente cercanas en comparación con los descubrimientos de Kepler, permitiendo a los científicos para llevar a cabo estudios de seguimiento. De hecho, estos exoplanetas son probables objetivos futuros para el telescopio espacial Hubble y el próximo telescopio espacial James Webb (JWST), con la posibilidad de estudiar las atmósferas de estos planetas en busca de firmas indicativos de la vida.

Mas información

More information.....

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/nasas-k2-mission-the-kepler-space-telescopes-second-chance-to-shine

The engineers huddled around a telemetry screen, and the mood was tense. They were watching streams of data from a crippled spacecraft more than 50 million miles away – so far that even at the speed of light, it took nearly nine minutes for a signal to travel to the spacecraft and back.

Engineers developed an innovative way to stabilize and control the spacecraft. This technique of using the sun as the "third wheel" has Kepler searching for planets again, but also making discoveries on young stars to supernovae.

Credits: NASA Ames/W Stenzel

Kepler's Second Light: How K2 Works

 

It was late August 2013, and the group of about five employees at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado, was waiting for NASA’s Kepler space telescope to reveal whether it would live or die. A severe malfunction had robbed the planet-hunting Kepler of its ability to stay pointed at a target without drifting off course.

The engineers had devised a remarkable solution: using the pressure of sunlight to stabilize the spacecraft so it could continue to do science. Now, there was nothing more they could do but wait for the spacecraft to reveal its fate.

“You’re not watching it unfold in real time,” said Dustin Putnam, Ball’s attitude control lead for Kepler. “You’re watching it as it unfolded a few minutes ago, because of the time the data takes to get back from the spacecraft.”

Finally, the team received the confirmation from the spacecraft they had been waiting for. The room broke out in cheers. The fix worked! Kepler, with a new lease on life, was given a new mission as K2. But the biggest surprise was yet to come. A space telescope with a distinguished history of discovering distant exoplanets – planets orbiting other stars – was about to outdo even itself, racking up hundreds more discoveries and helping to usher in entirely new opportunities in astrophysics research.

“Many of us believed that the spacecraft would be saved, but this was perhaps more blind faith than insight,” said Tom Barclay, senior research scientist and director of the Kepler and K2 guest observer office at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. "The Ball team devised an ingenious solution allowing the Kepler space telescope to shine again."

The discoveries roll in

A little more than two years after the tense moment for the Ball engineers, K2 has delivered on its promise with a breadth of discoveries. Continuing the exoplanet-hunting legacy, K2 has discovered more than three dozen exoplanets and with more than 250 candidates awaiting confirmation. A handful of these worlds are near-Earth-sized and orbit stars that are bright and relatively nearby compared with Kepler discoveries, allowing scientists to perform follow-up studies. In fact, these exoplanets are likely future targets for the Hubble Space Telescope and the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), with the potential to study these planets’ atmospheres in search of signatures indicative of life.

 

In this artist’s conception, a tiny rocky object vaporizes as it orbits a white dwarf star. Astronomers have detected the first planetary object transiting a white dwarf using data from the K2 mission. Slowly the object will disintegrate, leaving a dusting of metals on the surface of the star.

Credits: CfA/Mark A. Garlick

Dead star devours mini-planet

K2 also has astronomers rethinking long-held planetary formation theory, and the commonly understood lonely "hot Jupiter" paradigm. The unexpected discovery of a star with a close-in Jupiter-sized planet sandwiched between two smaller companion planets now has theorists back at their computers reworking the models, and has sent astronomers back to their telescopes in search of other hot Jupiter companions.

“It remains a mystery how a giant planet can form far out and migrate inward leaving havoc in its wake and still have nearby planetary companions,” said Barclay.

Like its predecessor, K2 searches for planetary transits – the tiny, telltale dip in the brightness of a star as a planet crosses in front – and for the first time caught the rubble from a destroyed exoplanet transiting across the remains of a dead star known as a white dwarf. Exoplanets have long been thought to orbit these remnant stars, but not until K2 has the theory been confirmed.

K2 has fixed its gaze on regions of the sky with densely packed clusters of stars which has revealed the first transiting exoplanet in such an area, popularly known as the Hyades star cluster. Clusters are exciting places to find exoplanets because stars in a cluster all form around the same time, giving them all the same "born-on" date. This helps scientists understand the evolution of planetary systems.

 

Seventy days worth of solar system observations from K2 are highlighted in this sped-up movie. Neptune, in a dance with its moons, demonstrates the solar system in action. Neptune appears on day 15, followed by its moon Triton, which looks small and faint. Keen-eyed observers can also spot Neptune's tiny moon Nereid at day 24.

Credits: NASA/Ames/SETI/J. Rowe

VIDEO: Neptune Dances with Its Moons

 

The repurposed spacecraft boasts discoveries beyond the realm of exoplanets. Mature stars – about the age of our sun and older – largely populated the original single Kepler field of view. In contrast, many K2 fields see stars still in the process of forming. In these early days, planets also are assembled and by looking at the timescales of star formation, scientists gain insight into how our own planet formed.

Studies of one star-forming region, called Upper Scorpius, compared the size of young stars observed by K2 with computational models. The result demonstrated fundamental imperfections in the models. While the reason for these discrepancies is still under debate, it likely shows that magnetic fields in stars do not arise as researchers expect.

Looking in the ecliptic – the orbital path traveled around the sun by the planets of our solar system and the location of the zodiac – K2 also is well equipped to observe small bodies within our own solar system such as comets, asteroids, dwarf planets, ice giants and moons. Last year, for instance, K2 observed Neptune in a dance with its two moons, Triton and Nereid. This was followed by observations of Pluto and Uranus.

“K2 can’t help but observe the dynamics of our planetary system, " said Barclay. "We all know that planets follow laws of motion but with K2 we can see it happen.”

These initial accomplishments have come in the first year and a half since K2 began in May 2014, and have been carried off without a hitch. The spacecraft continues to perform nominally.

Searching for far out worlds

In April, K2 will take part in a global experiment in exoplanet observation with a special observing period or campaign, Campaign 9. In this campaign, both K2 and astronomers at ground-based observatories on five continents will simultaneously monitor the same region of sky towards the center of our galaxy to search for small planets, such as the size of Earth, orbiting very far from their host star or, in some cases, orbiting no star at all.

For this experiment, scientists will use gravitational microlensing – the phenomenon that occurs when the gravity of a foreground object, such as a planet, focuses and magnifies the light from a distant background star. This detection method will allow scientists to find and determine the mass of planets that orbit at great distances, like Jupiter and Neptune do our sun.

 

At the first K2 Science Conference in Nov. 2015, nearly 200 scientists from around the world convened to discuss their research using K2 data. Knicole Colon, K2 support scientist, walks through the K2 observing opportunities available to the science community. To date, nearly 800 scientists have authored more than 100 scientific papers using K2 data.

Credits: Michele Johnson/NASA Ames

 

Design by community

What could turn out to be one of the most important legacies of K2 has little to do with the mechanics of the telescope, now operating on two wheels and with an assist from the sun.

The Kepler mission was organized along traditional lines of scientific discovery: a targeted set of objectives carefully chosen by the science team to answer a specific question on behalf of NASA – how common or rare are "Earths" around other suns?

K2’s modified mission involves a whole new approach-- engaging the scientific community at large and opening up the spacecraft's capabilities to a broader audience.

"The new approach of letting the community decide the most compelling science targets we’re going to look at has been one of the most exciting aspects," said Steve Howell, the Kepler and K2 project scientist at Ames. "Because of that, the breadth of our science is vast, including star clusters, young stars, supernovae, white dwarfs, very bright stars, active galaxies and, of course, exoplanets.”

In the new paradigm, the K2 team laid out some broad scientific objectives for the mission and planned to operate the spacecraft on behalf of the community. 

Kepler’s field of view surveyed just one patch of sky in the northern hemisphere. The K2 ecliptic field of view provides greater opportunities for Earth-based observatories in both the northern and southern hemispheres, allowing the whole world to participate.

With more than two years of fuel remaining, the spacecraft’s scientific future continues to look unexpectedly bright.

Ames manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

For more information about the Kepler and K2 missions, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

Authored by Michele Johnson and H. Pat Brennan/JPL

---

Media contact: 

Michele Johnson
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
650-604-6982
michele.johnson@nasa.gov

Last Updated: March 9, 2016

Editor: Michele Johnson

Tags:  Ames Research Center, Distant Planets, Kepler and K2, Neptune, Stars, Supernova, Universe,

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com

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NASA : Measuring the Mass of a Mars-size Exoplanet .- La medición de la masa de un exoplaneta del tamaño de Marte

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., hemos recibido información de la Agencia Espacial NASA, sobre la medición del tamaño de los exo planetas de la Serie Kepler-138. 

NASA, nos dice: Determinación del tamaño de un exoplaneta del tamaño de la Tierra por la cantidad de luz de las estrellas bloquea los cientos de años luz de distancia, una vez fue el reino de la ciencia ficción. La medición de la masa de un planeta tan pequeño en función de su gravedad era otro nivel completamente, pero los astrónomos han hecho precisamente eso para un exoplaneta del cincuenta por ciento del tamaño de la Tierra.
Los investigadores que utilizan datos de la misión Kepler de la NASA ha medido la masa de un exoplaneta del tamaño de Marte que es aproximadamente una décima parte de la masa de la Tierra. Llamado Kepler-138b, es el primer exoplaneta más pequeño que la Tierra para tener midieron tanto su masa y tamaño. Esto amplía significativamente el rango de planetas con densidades medidas.

More information............
http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/measuring-the-mass-of-a-mars-size-exoplanet

Measuring the Mass of a Mars-size Exoplanet

Determining the size of an Earth-size exoplanet by the amount of starlight it blocks hundreds of light-years away once was the realm of science fiction. Measuring the mass of such a small planet based on its gravity was another level entirely, but astronomers have done just that for an exoplanet fifty percent the size of Earth.

Researchers using NASA's Kepler mission data have measured the mass of a Mars-size exoplanet that is about one tenth the mass of Earth. Called Kepler-138b, it is the first exoplanet smaller than Earth to have both its mass and size measured. This significantly extends the range of planets with measured densities.

The artistic concept shows the planetary system harboring Kepler-138b, the first exoplanet smaller than Earth with both a mass and size measurement. The sizes of the planets relative to the star have been exaggerated.

Credits: SETI Institute/Danielle Futselaar

 

To determine a planet's mass, astronomers typically measure the minuscule movement of the star caused by the gravitational tug of an orbiting planet. For planets the mass of Earth detecting such a tiny tug is extraordinarily challenging with current technology. Fortunately, when a star hosts multiple planets that orbit closely together, scientists have developed another way to get at the planets’ masses.

Daniel Jontof-Hutter, a research associate at the Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, led a team of astronomers in a study to measure the mass of all three planets by precisely observing the times each planet passed in front of, or transited, the star Kepler-138.

"Each planet periodically slows down and accelerates ever so slightly from the gravity of its neighboring planets. The slight change in time between transits allows us to measure the masses of the planets," said Jontof-Hutter. 

Each time a planet transits a star it blocks a small fraction of the star's light, allowing astronomers to measure the size of the planet. This is how the Kepler spacecraft has detected thousands of planets around other stars.

By measuring both the mass and size of an exoplanet, scientists can calculate the density and infer the bulk composition to determine if a planet is predominantly made of rock, water or gas. Tiny Kepler-138b's density is consistent with a rocky composition like Earth or Mars, but further observations are needed before astronomers can definitively say that it is a rocky world.

Kepler-138b is the innermost of three planets that orbit Kepler-138, a star less than half the size of our sun and roughly 30 percent cooler. The Kepler-138 system is located about 200 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Lyra. 

The outer two planets, Kepler-138c and Kepler-138d, are approximately the size of Earth. Kepler-138c is likely to be rocky, whereas Kepler-138d is less dense and cannot be made of the same mix of material as Earth. All three planets orbit too close to their star for liquid water to exist on the surface and support life, as we know it.

This plot shows the masses and sizes of the smallest exoplanets for which both quantities have been measured. The solar system planets (shown in red) are for comparison.The three Kepler-138 planets (shown in orange) are among the four smallest exoplanets with both size and mass measurements. Kepler-138b is the first exoplanet smaller than Earth to have both its mass and size measured. This significantly extends the range of planets with measured densities.

Credits: NASA Ames/W Stenzel

Mars-size Kepler-138b gets a mass

 

"The substantial difference between the densities of the two larger planets tells us that not all planets similar to Earth in size are rocky," said Jack Lissauer, co-author and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Further study of small planets will help provide more understanding of the diversity that exists in nature, and will help determine if rocky planets like Earth are common or rare."

Much like astronomers in the early 20^th century studied a wide variety of stars to characterize and classify different types, astronomers in the 21^st century are doing the same to understand the diversity and demographics of planet populations in our Milky Way galaxy. 

Scientists are working to use these new measurements of small planets from Kepler and NASA's upcoming Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite to identify patterns in the relationship between mass and size. These insights will provide context for understanding the history of Earth and other planets in our own solar system, and inform the next generation planet hunters as they search for life beyond the solar system. 

A previous study had measured the masses of the two outer planets. This new study performed a more detailed analysis of the Kepler-138 system using additional Kepler data. This enabled the measurement of the mass of the Mars-size inner planet and improved the accuracy of the size and mass measurements for the outer planets. The results will appear in this Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

For more information on the Kepler mission, visit: www.nasa.gov/kepler.

A team of astronomers have measured the mass and size of the smallest exoplanet yet, a Mars-sized planet named Kepler-138b orbiting a red dwarf star about 200 light years from the Solar System. The animation shows the mass-radius diagram based on measurements of 127 exoplanets. The video begins by showing planets with masses similar to Jupiter and slowly zooms towards small masses and radii planets to display a comparison of the physical properties of the Kepler-138 planets relative to Earth, Venus, Mars and Mercury. The planet Kepler-138b is the first exoplanet smaller than the Earth to have both its mass and its size measured, and is one of three planets that orbit the star Kepler-138, and pass in front of it, or transit, every orbit. Each time a planet transits the star, it blocks a small fraction of the star's light, allowing astronomers to measure the size of the planet. All three planets were identified by NASA's Kepler mission that has discovered over a thousand planets around other stars.

Credits: Jason Rowe, NASA Ames/SETI Institute

Michele Johnson
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
650-604-6982
michele.johnson@nasa.gov

Last Updated: June 29, 2015

Editor: Michele Johnson

Tags:  Ames Research Center, Distant Planets, Kepler and K2, Mars, Universe

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

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NASA : Kepler Observes Neptune Dance with Its Moons.- Observatorio Espacial Kepler observa una especie de danza del planeta Neptuno con sus satélites Tritón y Nereida....

Seventy days worth of solar system observations from NASA's Kepler spacecraft, taken during its reinvented "K2" mission, are highlighted in this sped-up movie. The planet Neptune appears on day 15, followed by its moon Triton, which looks small and faint. Keen-eyed observers can also spot Neptune's tiny moon Nereid at day 24. Neptune is not moving backward but appears to do so because of the changing position of the Kepler spacecraft as it orbits around the sun.

Credits: NASA Ames/SETI Institute/J. Rowe

Last Updated: May 17, 2015

Editor: Michele Johnson

Setenta días el valor de las observaciones del sistema solar de la nave espacial Kepler de la NASA, tomada durante su misión "K2" reinventado, se destacan en esta acelerada película. El planeta Neptuno aparece en el día 15, seguido de su luna Tritón, que parece pequeño y débil. Observadores-Keen ojos también pueden detectar pequeña luna Nereida de Neptuno en el día 24. Neptuno no se está moviendo hacia atrás, pero parece hacerlo debido a la posición cambiante de la nave espacial Kepler a medida que orbita alrededor del sol.

More information:

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/kepler/ames/kepler-observes-neptune-dance-with-its-moons

Tags:  Ames Research Center, Kepler and K2, Moons, Neptune, Solar System,

Kepler Observes Neptune Dance with Its Moons

Nave espacial Kepler de la NASA, conocido por su destreza de búsqueda de planetas de otras estrellas, también está estudiando objetos del sistema solar. En su nueva misión K2, Neptuno y dos de sus lunas, Tritón y Nereida, se han fotografiado. La película muestra 70 días de observación ininterrumpida haciendo de este uno de los estudios más continuas de un objeto del sistema solar exterior.

NASA's Kepler spacecraft, known for its planet-hunting prowess of other stars, is also studying solar system objects. In its new K2 mission, Neptune and two of its moons, Triton and Nereid, have been imaged. The movie illustrates 70 days of uninterrupted observation making this one of the longer continuous studies of an outer solar system object.

The movie, based on 101,580 images taken from November 2014 through January 2015 during K2's Campaign 3, reveals the perpetual clockwork of our solar system. The 70-day timespan is compressed into 34 seconds with the number of days noted in the top right corner.

Neptune appears on day 15 but does not travel alone in the video. The small faint object closely orbiting is its large moon Triton, which circles Neptune every 5.8 days. Appearing from the left at day 24, keen-eyed observers can also spot the tiny moon Nereid in its slow 360-day orbit around the planet. A few fast-moving asteroids make cameo appearances in the movie, showing up as streaks across the K2 field of view. The red dots are a few of the stars K2 examines in its search for transiting planets outside of our solar system.

Neptune's atmosphere reflects sunlight creating a bright appearance. The reflected light floods a number of pixels of the spacecraft's on board camera, producing the bright spikes extending above and below the planet. The celestial bodies in the stitched-together images are colored red to represent the wavelength response of the spacecraft's camera. In reality, Neptune is deep blue in color and its moons and the speeding asteroids are light grey while the background stars appear white from a distance.

Relative orbit speeds explain the interesting motion of Neptune and its moons beginning at day 42. Inner planets like Earth orbit more quickly than outer planets like Neptune. In the movie, Neptune’s apparent motion relative to the stationary stars is mostly due to the circular 372-day orbit of the Kepler spacecraft around the sun. If you look at distant objects and move your head back and forth, you will notice that objects close to you will also appear to move back and forth, relative to objects far away. The same concept is producing the apparent motion of Neptune.

While NASA’s Kepler spacecraft is known for its discoveries of planets around other stars, an international team of astronomers plans to use these data to track Neptune’s weather and probe the planet’s internal structure by studying subtle brightness fluctuations that can only be observed with K2.

NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

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