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11-7-23

NASA Data Sonification

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NASA dicit:

This sonification turns the orbits of a new seven-planet system, discovered by NASA’s retired Kepler space telescope, into sound. It begins at the center of the system with the innermost orbit and builds toward the outermost, introducing each orbit with a new sound that plays once per rotation around the central Sun-like star. It then focuses on two specific orbits in resonance, which creates a beating sound with the inner rotating twice in the same period as the outer rotates three times. Next, only the three outer-most planets are singled out as an orbital resonance chain before blending all seven together again. This is the first planetary system in which each planet bathed in more radiant heat from their host star per area than any in our solar system.

Video credit: NASA’s Ames Research Center/Bishop’s University /Jason Rowe

 

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06-3-20

K2-18b

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Wikipedia dicit:

K2-18b was identified as part of the Kepler space telescope program, one of over 1,200 exoplanets discovered during the “Second Light” K2 mission. The discovery of K2-18b was made in 2015, orbiting a red dwarf star (now known as K2-18) with a stellar spectral type of M2.8 about 124 light-years (38 pc) from Earth. The planet was detected through variations in the star’s light curve caused by the transit of the planet in front of the star as seen from Earth. The planet was designated “K2-18b” as it was the eighteenth planet discovered during the K2 mission. The predicted relatively low contrast between the planet and its host star would make it easier to observe K2-18b’s atmosphere in the future.

In 2017, data from the Spitzer Space Telescope confirmed that K2-18b orbits in the habitable zone around K2-18 with a 33-day period, short enough to allow for observations of multiple K2-18b orbital cycles and improving the statistical significance of the signal. This led to widespread interest in continued observations of K2-18b.

Later studies on K2-18b using the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) and the Calar Alto high-Resolution search for M dwarfs with Exoearths with Near-infrared and optical Echelle Spectrographs (CARMENES) instruments also identified a likely second exoplanet, K2-18c, with an estimated mass of 5.62±0.84 M⊕ in a tighter, 9-day orbit, but this additional planet has not yet been confirmed, and may instead be due to stellar activity.

Video credit: NASA Goddard

 

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11-28-19

Kepler Discoveries

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Wikipedia dicit:

The Kepler space telescope is a retired space telescope launched by NASA to discover Earth-size planets orbiting other stars. Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched on March 7, 2009, into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit. The principal investigator was William J. Borucki. After nine years of operation, the telescope’s reaction control system fuel was depleted, and NASA announced its retirement on October 30, 2018.

Designed to survey a portion of Earth’s region of the Milky Way to discover Earth-size exoplanets in or near habitable zones and estimate how many of the billions of stars in the Milky Way have such planets, Kepler’s sole scientific instrument is a photometer that continually monitored the brightness of approximately 150,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view. These data are transmitted to Earth, then analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by exoplanets that cross in front of their host star. Only planets whose orbits are seen edge-on from Earth can be detected. During its over nine and a half years of service, Kepler observed 530,506 stars and detected 2,662 planets.

Video Credit: Ethan Kruse/NASA Goddard

 

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10-11-18

Kepler-1625b Moon

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NASA dixit:

“Using NASA’s Hubble and Kepler space telescopes, astronomers have uncovered tantalizing evidence of what could be the first discovery of a moon orbiting a planet outside our solar system. This moon candidate, which is 8,000 light-years from Earth in the Cygnus constellation, orbits a gas-giant planet that, in turn, orbits a star called Kepler-1625. Researchers caution that the moon hypothesis is tentative and must be confirmed by follow-up Hubble observations.

Since moons outside our solar system – known as exomoons – cannot be imaged directly, their presence is inferred when they pass in front of a star, momentarily dimming its light. Such an event is called a transit, and has been used to detect many of the exoplanets cataloged to date. However, exomoons are harder to detect than exoplanets because they are smaller than their companion planet, and so their transit signal is weaker when plotted on a light curve that measures the duration of the planet crossing and the amount of momentary dimming. Exomoons also shift position with each transit because the moon is orbiting the planet.”

Astronomers Find First Evidence of Possible Moon Outside Our Solar System

Evidence for a large exomoon orbiting Kepler-1625b

Evidence for an Exomoon around Kepler-1625b

Video Credit: NASA Goddard

 

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12-20-17

AI Used to Discover Exoplanets

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NASA dixit:

“Our solar system now is tied for most number of planets around a single star, with the recent discovery of an eighth planet circling Kepler-90, a Sun-like star 2,545 light years from Earth. The planet was discovered in data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope.

The newly-discovered Kepler-90i — a sizzling hot, rocky planet that orbits its star once every 14.4 days — was found by researchers from Google and The University of Texas at Austin using machine learning. Machine learning is an approach to artificial intelligence in which computers “learn.” In this case, computers learned to identify planets by finding in Kepler data instances where the telescope recorded signals from planets beyond our solar system, known as exoplanets.”

Video credit: NASA Ames Research Center

 

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03-8-10

Kepler Anniversary

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Credits: NASA/Kim Shiflett

 

On March 6, 2009, the Delta II launch vehicle carrying the Kepler spacecraft lifted off from Launch Complex 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

 

In May 2009, Kepler started to hunt for other Earth-like planets in our galaxy. The technique used by Kepler to discover exo-planets is called transits. The large field of view of the Kepler telescope simultaneously captures the light of a very large number of stars in the Cygnus and Lyra constellations.

 

Kepler scientists already announced the discovery of five exoplanets named Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b, and 8b. The data collected by Kepler was also used to detect the atmosphere of the HAT-P-7b giant gas planet.

 

 

Kepler is expected to be operational until at least November 2012. Scientists hope to discover exo-planets in the habitable zone of other stars. The habitable zone is a region around a star where water can exist in liquid form on the surface of a planet. You can find more information about Kepler on NASA’s Kepler Mission website.

 

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