Kepler Mission |
Kepler Mission |
Dec 21 2009, 06:04 PM
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#391
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Member Group: Members Posts: 204 Joined: 14-April 06 From: Seattle, WA Member No.: 745 |
Maybe I overstepped my bounds, but I was just using Clarke's name for the water-world in his story as a descriptor of water-worlds in general. I am sure that Clarke used the name of the goddess for his planet because of the custom of using the names Greaco-Roman gods and goddess for planets in this Solar System. I think it is not a bad nominative for what I think will be a large class of exoplanets.
I think for the "hot" worlds (those within the habitable zone of a star) the water gets boiled off, dissociated by the UV from the star and the hydrogen is lost and blown away by the stellar wind. If I understand correctly, Venus was once a hot water world (at least it had an ocean that is now gone). What Kepler will give us, hopefully, is examples of Venus-like worlds at different ages. That is sure to inform the speculation of what happened to the oceans of Venus. Ron |
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Dec 23 2009, 12:15 AM
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#392
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 32 Joined: 27-May 04 From: northern Indiana Member No.: 78 |
It's in the last paragraph.
EDIT: oops, I was responding to a previous post about the Time article, but someone already pointed that out |
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Dec 24 2009, 04:51 AM
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#393
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Member Group: Members Posts: 128 Joined: 10-December 06 From: Atlanta Member No.: 1472 |
latest update: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/n...m-20091223.html
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Dec 24 2009, 05:21 PM
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#394
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1621 Joined: 5-March 05 From: Boulder, CO Member No.: 184 |
Neat - the AAS conference with results already coming up in the next couple of weeks.
http://www.abstractsonline.com/plan/Browse...7a-f0cf7b29b41f http://www.abstractsonline.com/plan/ViewAb...bf-512927a1bafb Presentation Number 101.01 Presentation Time: Monday, Jan 04, 2010, 8:30 AM - 9:20 AM Title Kepler Planet Detection Mission: Introduction and First Results Author Block William J. Borucki1, D. Koch1, G. Basri2, N. M. Batalha3, T. Brown4, D. A. Caldwell5, J. Caldwell6, J. Christensen-Dalsgaard7, W. Cochran8, E. DeVore5, E. Dunham9, A. Dupree10, T. Gautier11, J. Geary10, R. Gilliland12, A. Gould13, S. Howell14, J. Jenkins5, H. Kjeldsen7, Y. Kondo15, D. Latham10, J. Lissauer1, G. Marcy2, S. Meibom10, D. Monet16, D. Morrison1, D. Sasselov17, J. Tarter5 1NASA/Ames Research Center, 2University of California, 3San Jose State Universiy, 4Los Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope, 5SETI Institute, 6York University, Canada, 7Aarhus University, Denmark, 8University of Texas, 9Lowell Observatory, 10SAO, 11JPL, 12STScI, 13Lawrence Hall of Science, 14NOAO, 15NASA GSFC, 16US Naval Observatory, 17Harvard. Abstract The Kepler Mission is designed to determine the frequency of Earth-size and terrestrial size planets in and near the HZ of solar-like stars. It was competitively selected as Discovery Mission #10 and launched on March 6, 2009. Since completion of commissioning, it has continuously observed over 145,000 main sequence stars. The photometric precision reaches 20 ppm for 12th magnitude stars on the least noisy detectors in 6.5 hours. During the first month of operation, the photometer detected transit-like signatures from over 100 stars. Careful examination of these events shows many of them to be false-positives such as background eclipsing binaries. However ground-based follow up observations confirm the discovery of exoplanets with sizes ranging from 0.6 Rj to1.5Rj and orbital periods ranging from 3 to 9 days. Observations at Keck, Hobby-Eberly, Harlan-Smith, WIYN, MMT, Tillighast, Shane, and Nordic Optic telescopes are vetting many of the candidates and measuring their masses. Discovery of the HAT-P7b occultation will be used to derive atmospheric properties and demonstrates the precision necessary to detect Earth-size planets. Asteroseismic analyses of several stars show the presence of p-mode oscillations that can be used to determine stellar size and age. This effort is being organized by the Kepler Asteroseismic Science Consortium at Aarhus University in Denmark. Stellar parallaxes are determined from the centroid motion of the stellar images and will be combined with photometric measurements to get the sizes of stars too dim for asteroseismic measurement. Four open clusters are being observed to determine rotation rates with stellar age and spectral type. Many types of stellar variability are observed with unprecedented precision and over long continuous time periods. Examples of many of these discoveries are presented. Funding by the Exoplanet Exploration Program of the NASA Astrophysics Division is gratefully acknowledged. -------------------- Steve [ my home page and planetary maps page ]
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Dec 24 2009, 05:26 PM
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#395
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1414 Joined: 26-July 08 Member No.: 4270 |
Link doesn't work for me, as is so for all abstractsonline links. I've heard one must go through their main page to find abstracts but I never seem to be able to find any abstracts doing that.
-------------------- -- Hungry4info (Sirius_Alpha)
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Dec 26 2009, 08:58 PM
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#396
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Member Group: Members Posts: 813 Joined: 29-December 05 From: NE Oh, USA Member No.: 627 |
Link doesn't work for me, as is so for all abstractsonline links. I've heard one must go through their main page to find abstracts but I never seem to be able to find any abstracts doing that. Hungry4info.... go to http://aas.org/meetings/aas215 Click on "Program and Block Schedule" on the right hand side of the page On the next page click on "Meeting Program and Itinerary Builder" Then click on "Browse" and you can choose by session day or category. Straight forward, huh!!!! Craig |
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Dec 26 2009, 09:06 PM
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#397
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1414 Joined: 26-July 08 Member No.: 4270 |
Ah, thanks for that. I was trying to go through abstractsonline dot com and navigate from there. =S
-------------------- -- Hungry4info (Sirius_Alpha)
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Dec 27 2009, 12:02 AM
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#398
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Member Group: Members Posts: 813 Joined: 29-December 05 From: NE Oh, USA Member No.: 627 |
Ah, thanks for that. I was trying to go through abstractsonline dot com and navigate from there. =S I have had problems my self using the abstratonline service. If I know an abstract is from a meeting venue I usually go straight to that venue. As for a Kepler related note I found this reference on the Extrsolar Visions forum... seems like the original source document was removed off the ESA site but found a truncated version here: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/15604836/2-Sci...a-solar-planets first page "very recent detections with the Kepler satellite of a large population of close-in, small transiting objects (2-4 earth radii, private communication) awaiting to be confirmed by radial-velocity observations." - I know the source document is recent because some of the figures note GJ 1214b (a show stopping discovery by the MEarth project - "which has a mass of 6.55M⊕ and a radius 2.68 times Earth’s radius (R⊕), indicating that it is intermediate in stature between Earth and the ice giants of the Solar System.") http://fr.arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0912/0912.3229.pdf Craig |
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Jan 1 2010, 04:56 PM
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#399
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
NASA to Unveil Kepler Space Telescope Discoveries
Rumors? Bets? Wild speculations? |
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Jan 1 2010, 05:18 PM
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#400
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Senior Member Group: Admin Posts: 4763 Joined: 15-March 05 From: Glendale, AZ Member No.: 197 |
Having worked in PR for years, I'd say this line gives a clue:
Although the news conference will not be broadcast live on NASA Television, Kepler video will be aired on NASA TV immediately following the news briefing on the media channel. That tells me it's interesting but probably not headline grabbing. I would expect that if it was something really huge they'd get the full, live NASA TV feed, and they'd have some higher up NASA bigwigs there. Worthy of guesses, but at this point the wild speculation would be unwarranted. -------------------- If Occam had heard my theory, things would be very different now.
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Jan 1 2010, 05:34 PM
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#401
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1621 Joined: 5-March 05 From: Boulder, CO Member No.: 184 |
Given the timing it might mirror pretty closely the AAS conference, whose abstracts we're looking at above. Belleraphon1's post #398 is intriguing though.
-------------------- Steve [ my home page and planetary maps page ]
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Jan 2 2010, 10:34 PM
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#402
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Member Group: Members Posts: 813 Joined: 29-December 05 From: NE Oh, USA Member No.: 627 |
My guess is derived from the abstract below from AAS meeting.... (admin, I copied the entire abstract because direct inks do not seem to work) I think it is way too soon for them to announce any smaller worlds yet. The big guys are easier to nail down with RV confirmations. However they may hint that much more is to come. I also expect them to say a thing or two about the variable stars they are seeing. " ground-based follow up observations confirm the discovery of exoplanets with sizes ranging from 0.6 Rj to1.5Rj and orbital periods ranging from 3 to 9 days" "101.01 Presentation Time: Monday, Jan 04, 2010, 8:30 AM - 9:20 AM Title Kepler Planet Detection Mission: Introduction and First Results Author Block William J. Borucki1, D. Koch1, G. Basri2, N. M. Batalha3, T. Brown4, D. A. Caldwell5, J. Caldwell6, J. Christensen-Dalsgaard7, W. Cochran8, E. DeVore5, E. Dunham9, A. Dupree10, T. Gautier11, J. Geary10, R. Gilliland12, A. Gould13, S. Howell14, J. Jenkins5, H. Kjeldsen7, Y. Kondo15, D. Latham10, J. Lissauer1, G. Marcy2, S. Meibom10, D. Monet16, D. Morrison1, D. Sasselov17, J. Tarter5 1NASA/Ames Research Center, 2University of California, 3San Jose State Universiy, 4Los Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope, 5SETI Institute, 6York University, Canada, 7Aarhus University, Denmark, 8University of Texas, 9Lowell Observatory, 10SAO, 11JPL, 12STScI, 13Lawrence Hall of Science, 14NOAO, 15NASA GSFC, 16US Naval Observatory, 17Harvard. Abstract The Kepler Mission is designed to determine the frequency of Earth-size and terrestrial size planets in and near the HZ of solar-like stars. It was competitively selected as Discovery Mission #10 and launched on March 6, 2009. Since completion of commissioning, it has continuously observed over 145,000 main sequence stars. The photometric precision reaches 20 ppm for 12th magnitude stars on the least noisy detectors in 6.5 hours. During the first month of operation, the photometer detected transit-like signatures from over 100 stars. Careful examination of these events shows many of them to be false-positives such as background eclipsing binaries. However ground-based follow up observations confirm the discovery of exoplanets with sizes ranging from 0.6 Rj to1.5Rj and orbital periods ranging from 3 to 9 days. Observations at Keck, Hobby-Eberly, Harlan-Smith, WIYN, MMT, Tillighast, Shane, and Nordic Optic telescopes are vetting many of the candidates and measuring their masses. Discovery of the HAT-P7b occultation will be used to derive atmospheric properties and demonstrates the precision necessary to detect Earth-size planets. Asteroseismic analyses of several stars show the presence of p-mode oscillations that can be used to determine stellar size and age. This effort is being organized by the Kepler Asteroseismic Science Consortium at Aarhus University in Denmark. Stellar parallaxes are determined from the centroid motion of the stellar images and will be combined with photometric measurements to get the sizes of stars too dim for asteroseismic measurement. Four open clusters are being observed to determine rotation rates with stellar age and spectral type. Many types of stellar variability are observed with unprecedented precision and over long continuous time periods. Examples of many of these discoveries are presented. Funding by the Exoplanet Exploration Program of the NASA Astrophysics Division is gratefully acknowledged." Craig |
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Jan 2 2010, 10:48 PM
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#403
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 87 Joined: 9-November 07 Member No.: 3958 |
Keep in mind that the deadline for AAS meeting abstracts was back in October (an from experience most of the presentations are being put together this week), so it's not at all unusual for ongoing projects to submit what are almost placeholders in anticipation of later results. I would put more reading of the tea leaves into the NASA TV schedule announcement than what the submitted abstracts say.
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Jan 3 2010, 07:07 PM
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#404
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 87 Joined: 9-November 07 Member No.: 3958 |
Pamela Gay reports at Astrosphere that they will be video-streaming press conferences from the AAS meeting here; the exoplanet session is Wednesday Jan 6, 10 a.m. EST.
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Jan 4 2010, 12:59 AM
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#405
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1018 Joined: 29-November 05 From: Seattle, WA, USA Member No.: 590 |
The Kepler folks themselves say they'll tell all tomorrow (Monday, January 4, 2010) at 10 AM PST (1800Z).
http://www.kepler.arc.nasa.gov/news/nasake...s&NewsID=15 Hopefully Emily can join this briefing! :-) --Greg |
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