Kepler Mission Options

[0101Morpheus]

Just to let everyone know that Kepler is holding a teleconference tomorrow at 1:00pm EST.

http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/nasa-hosts...s/#.Uwyd_V4x_UQ

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-057

[TheAnt]

A study on super Earths, with a conclusion I question to some degree, pressure is not a showstopper for "interesting" chemistry to happen on such a world.
Since this make references to Kepler I added this piece to this thread.

[Explorer1]

Conference in a few minutes:
http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/i...ml#.Uw4qZYWldMJ

Edit: 715 candidates validated! http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/nasas-kepl...planet-bonanza/
More slides: http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/digital-pr...a/#.Uw4urYWldMJ

[dtolman]

Just listened - 94% of the planets are sub-Neptune sized. This vastly increases our knowledge about smaller planets.
The new verification technique allows them to more quickly verify multiple planet systems, thus the huge increase. They expect more verification as they go through older data.

So all these are parts of new systems, many which resemble our inner solar system!

[Paolo]

speaking of Kepler and its follow-on mission, this was recently published in arXiv: The K2 Mission: Characterization and Early results

The K2 mission will make use of the Kepler spacecraft and its assets to expand upon Kepler's groundbreaking discoveries in the fields of exoplanets and astrophysics through new and exciting observations. K2 will use an innovative way of operating the spacecraft to observe target fields along the ecliptic for the next 2-3 years. Early science commissioning observations have shown an estimated photometric precision near 400 ppm in a single 30 minute observation, and a 6-hour photometric precision of 80 ppm (both at V=12). The K2 mission offers simultaneous observation of thousands of objects at a precision far better than is achievable from the ground. Ecliptic fields will be observed for approximately 75-days enabling a unique exoplanet survey which fills the gaps in duration and sensitivity between the Kepler and TESS missions, and offers pre-launch exoplanet target identification for JWST transit spectroscopy. Astrophysics observations with K2 will include studies of young open clusters, bright stars, galaxies, supernovae, and asteroseismology.

[TheAnt]

speaking of Kepler and its follow-on mission, this was recently published in arXiv: The K2 Mission: Characterization and Early results

This strategy do make perfect sense after all, a survey is the right method since this field of research is rather new and in fact have been defined by Kepler itself.

[JRehling]

I've web-published the first of two posts I'm going to do on the performance of Kepler and the search for possible earthlike planets in its data. The quick takeaway of this post is that Kepler's data was noisier than expected, and this has helped to bury any real possible earthlike planets in lots of false positives. There's a really pretty illustration (I think) that shows the artifactual nature of the Kepler telescope's detector.

http://sciencepiazza.blogspot.com/2014/03/...ts-lost-in.html

[RichforMars]

Such a shame that no actual water worlds have been found, covered in water. Who knows if there is one out there...

I know personnel space flight isn't allowed to be discussed but as more of a thought without any discussion, the thought of a craft landing on a distant water world and then the challenge of taking off is just insane!!

MOD NOTE: If you know this, then you should also know that skirting the rules by using some variation of 'I know, but…' before making a statement referring to a subject that is not permissible ain't gonna fly at all. Please don't do this anymore.

[Explorer1]

Not insane at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Launch

Launching from the high seas for 15 years now. The equatorial location is great too...

[Hungry4info]

Such a shame that no actual water worlds have been found, covered in water.

What makes you think none have been found? Some planets found by Kepler are consistent with a water-world composition.

[JRehling]

By and large, we know the composition of almost none of the discovered extrasolar planets. In some cases, particularly the very large and very small planets (density is also a great clue), we can make a good guess and probably be right, but that is based on general principles, not direct observation.

It's particularly interesting to contemplate the nature of Super Earths, since our solar system contains none, although the universe contains many. It's also worth noting that "Super Earth" means potentially something quite different if we define that in terms of radius or in terms of mass.

It's also worth noting that the uncertainty in gross measurements of exoplanets usually creates enormous uncertainty regarding density, much less composition, geology, climate, etc. There are many Kepler planets where the uncertainty in radius is inclusive of possibilities ranging from Venus to Neptune... we're in no position to know what that planet is made of. What we know about an exoplanet is usually the orbital period, quite exactly, and the radius OR the mass, with considerable uncertainty. In a few lucky cases, we've measured radius and mass.

All of the cases where composition has been measured spectroscopically have been large planets where we're finding a trace constituent in an atmosphere which is probably dominated by hydrogen and helium.

It's easy for discussions of these topics to (a) violate the rules of this particular board, and (b ) be entirely speculative in any case, since data is lacking.

[RichforMars]

What planets found by the probe/telescope could actually be water covered?

I guess not until the Web telescope is in orbit, only then can a better understanding of a number of these planets be confirmed. Sadly only a deep space probe can really do that for certain. Oh well.

[JRehling]

Most Kepler planets are 500-5000 light years away, and are therefore a poor prospect for detailed follow-up science in almost all cases. Kepler provides a survey of what is typical, and cranks out big numbers. The future of exoplanet science is probably going to use Kepler data to set expectations for searches closer to home (10-200 LY), and those planets will provide vastly superior options for follow-up science.

What we really hope for is the ability to do visual/IR spectroscopy, which requires getting enough light from the exoplanet without light from its star completely masking the signal. That's hard in the best of cases, and is much harder if the planet is small and/or the system is far away. The distance from the Earth to the Sun would appear as one pixel to HST and JWST for a system 90 light years away. So beyond that, the hope of getting a planet isolated from its star is bleak even with a telescope designed for the task (which HST and JWST are not).

The path towards getting compositional data for smaller planets requires us next to find some closer to Earth. Then build the telescopes that can make those observations. It's seemingly not at all close at hand.

[RichforMars]

Yes, sure I wouldn't expect distant worlds.

Its a long shot how ever you explain it. Detailed world analysis still a few decades off, for a very crystal clear picture of some of the further away worlds, but even so the closer planets too.

Most of what is known will most likely benefit more the next two generations than for us alive now, such as when the time arises with better technology to help make or break ideas on the current properties of the planets found.

[JRehling]

Here's my second installment in an analysis of false positives in Kepler's data pipeline:

http://sciencepiazza.blogspot.com/2014/03/...ating-true.html

Others have taken their own direction on this. I hope my take is useful for researchers and other interested parties in understanding the noise in Kepler's instrument.

In a third post yet to come, I'll take a look at the possible earthlike planets that seem to have the best chance of being real rather than artifacts of noise.