Kepler Mission |
Kepler Mission |
Sep 24 2005, 04:23 PM
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#201
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Member Group: Members Posts: 147 Joined: 3-July 04 From: Chicago, IL Member No.: 91 |
This NASA Discovery mission is to be launched in June 2008 and will search for Earth-size and smaller planets. Launch was originally scheduled in 2007 but delayed by 8 months due to "funding constraints".
Here's the official web site: http://www.kepler.arc.nasa.gov/ |
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Aug 16 2009, 01:52 AM
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#202
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
I'm not sure what you mean by "resolvable," Steve. It's not like we're able to resolve a star disk image with a transit visible as a blotted-out circle within it. But I would imagine that the "resolution" in this regard would be the same as Kepler's overall ability to detect a planetary transit. A moon would have to be the minimum size necessary for Kepler to detect it, all by itself, as a transit event. So if Kepler can't detect the dimming of a star's light caused by the transit of a Callisto-sized planet, it ought not be able to detect the additional dimming that would occur with a Callisto-sized moon as it would appear in the first frame of 'squid's excellent illustration. And also, therefore, ought not be able to tell the difference between the first and second frames.
As I understand it, Kepler can detect down to about an Earth-sized planet, correct? Then I would have to think that the smallest gas giant moon it might detect would have to be at least as large as the Earth. Another very interesting thing, though -- any planetary body with a ring system will block more or less of a star's light depending on the angle the ring plane presents to the viewer. I can well imagine that some percentage of the planets Kepler will discover may indeed have ring systems, and that these ring systems may not always present the same angle to us here on Earth during every single transit. It will be very, very interesting to see how fast the investigators suspect they're seeing ring systems in some of their results... -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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Aug 16 2009, 07:07 AM
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#203
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1452 Joined: 26-July 08 Member No.: 4270 |
Yes, they would be able to detect the transit of a sufficiently large moon separate from the planet, regardless of if the two are transiting simultaneously, just so long as the planet doesn't eclipse or occult the moon at the time of transit (in which case, surely, it won't in at least some other transits).
A moon would have to be the minimum size necessary for Kepler to detect it, all by itself, as a transit event. So if Kepler can't detect the dimming of a star's light caused by the transit of a Callisto-sized planet, it ought not be able to detect the additional dimming that would occur with a Callisto-sized moon as it would appear in the first frame of 'squid's excellent illustration. And also, therefore, ought not be able to tell the difference between the first and second frames. Normally, yes, but with the transit light curve of a planet being scrutinsed, that photometric data gets much more attention. Photometric data containing evidence for a planet (one of the later OGLE planets) went un-noticed for quite some time. Kepler and others like it gather a lot of data, which isn't too easy to sift through easily and detect very minute transits. I hope they intensely scrutinize Kepler photometry around transits of medium and long-period planets in search of moons. Though I don't know what you could really say about them (other than their radius, with a significant error) without extensive transit-timing observations (Hey, Kepler might give those too). QUOTE As I understand it, Kepler can detect down to about an Earth-sized planet, correct? Then I would have to think that the smallest gas giant moon it might detect would have to be at least as large as the Earth. Did you see the depth of the HAT-P-7b secondary transit in the raw data during the press release? It's apparently the same depth as an Earth-radius planet in transit. It shouldn't be much of a stretch to imagine a transit depth half of that (not half the radius of the planet, of course, but a planet whose disk has half the 'area').QUOTE any planetary body with a ring system will block more or less of a star's light depending on the angle the ring plane presents to the viewer. I can well imagine that some percentage of the planets Kepler will discover may indeed have ring systems, and that these ring systems may not always present the same angle to us here on Earth during every single transit. It will be very, very interesting to see how fast the investigators suspect they're seeing ring systems in some of their results... This paper, Transit Detectability of Ring Systems Around Extrasolar Giant Planets http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0409506 discusses the transits of ringed planets, shows example light curves, and describes how scattering may allow for one to determine the size of particles in the rings. -------------------- -- Hungry4info (Sirius_Alpha)
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