From spaceref.com

Editor's's note: According to multiple sources, Kepler has not found anything "new". However it has successfully detected at least one previously discovered substellar object circling another star. In other words, this amazing little spacecraft works!

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=28885

Craig

My pessimism never fails! Haha.

I still look forward to the press release.

That is not entirely true.

Ok, Mr Inside Knowledge, which part of that previous post isn't "entirely true"?

Looking forward to Thursday's press conference... even with Kepler telescope's larger field of view and better optics, 3 transits are needed to confirm an exo-planet. So why shouldn't they require RV (Radial Velocity) confirmations... It could speed up the science output?

Is it Friday already?...
I know nothing...but we'll have new articles at BtC on the 6th.
I have the feeling that Hungry4info can keep a little bit of the pessimism after the conference...

AFAIK, radial-velocity data cannot now reach the precision to see the Doppler signature of the Earth on the Sun, which is the spot everyone hopes Kepler reaches. For most potential host stars, noise due to such things as convective features on the star limits the precision reachable no matter how good the photon statistics are. However, radial-velocity confirmation of a different kind can come from changes in the star's velocity centroid during transit (the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect), which can have a rather larger amplitude than the reflex Doppler shift. Happening only during a single transit, it also places less stringent requirements on the star's own long-term stability in centroid velocity. Anyway, that's how I'd approach the followup. (Well, that and attempts to winnow out projected third stars blended with ordinary eclipsing binaries; RV studies could do a fair job at that by seeing multiple velocity components all the time).

For those who didn't click through, let's take a look at the rest of that editor's note: "In addition, new candidate exoplanets have also been discovered but await confirmation by other telescopes. The results of Kepler's observations will appear in an article in this week's edition of Science magazine."

Hah. That extra part wasn't there earlier today. It's been edited.

Gsnorgathon

that additional note was added AFTER my posting. SO.. everyone... "keep watching the skies...."

Seriously... not sure what sort of article will appear in Science, but that is a one heck of a fast track for publication.
So not sure if this will be a peer reviewed paper, or an editorial article from Kepler participants.

Let's all stay tuned...

BOY I love this... a real encyclopedia of worlds we will have in 20 years.

Craig

Exceeds.

Ah... interesting that that bit was added later, isn't it? And yeah, the prospect of this press conference has me reaching for my drool bucket, for sure. (And the cold, hard realist is saying "hold on son - the real juicy bits won't come until later.")

Even though we can't detect an Earth in an Earth-like orbit, we can set limits on its mass. The transit periodicity tells us the semi-major axis, radius, and orbital period, based on the mass and size of the star. We'll know if the planet is in the habitable zone.

If we don't detect the planet, this may be better news than if we do, as the planet would thus be fairly low-mass. If we do detect the planet, then it certainly won't be Earth-like.

On the other-hand, being that we know that RV signal to look for, we might be able to detect an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone. The inability to detect Earth analogues around solar-type stars is partly because we don't know where to look in the data. It's just a sea of dots on a graph. Transit detection will tell us what period to look around, and the transit ephemeris will tell us where the signal will be.

Searching for planets with Kepler transit photometry already in hand will be like saying "Here is the planet, we already know where it's RV curve is, and we already know it is there." This will allow much lower planet-masses to be discovered than blind-searching.

EDITED: If only Galileo was here...

EDITED
Sorry Ustrax - we've said no more rhyme and riddle - ADMIN

At the rate they're downplaying things now, I'm fully expecting the head of the Kepler team to stand up at today's press conference and say "Sorry to disappoint you all, but we haven't found any Earth sized planets yet. But hey, some good news, I found my car keys!" ...