Kepler

[orin stepanek]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/keple ... index.html

Has anyone noticed the countdown clock? They're finally going to launch this baby. 8) I hope all goes as planned.

Orin

[neufer]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html
Has anyone noticed the countdown clock? They're finally going to launch this baby. 8) I hope all goes as planned.

Nice to be comfortably inside "the green zone:"

The Terrestrial Accretion Zone and The Habitable Zone for Various Stellar Types

<<The continuously habitable zone is bounded by the range of distances from a star for which liquid water would exist and by the range of stellar spectral types for which planets had enough time to form and complex life had enough time to evolve (less massive than F) and for which stellar flares and atmospheric condensation due to tidal locking do not occur (more massive than M). The figure shows the continuously habitable zone as calculated by Kasting, Whitmire, and Reynolds, (1993) for main-sequence stars as a function of spectral type.



The Kepler Mission performs an unbiased search for all orbital periods less than two years, that is, out to a Martian orbit, and for all spectral types of stars. It is not affected by solar or extrasolar zodiacal background and can detect planets within binary star systems.>>

[aristarchusinexile]

I think once we find these Earth sized planets and the ones with oxygen and water; then we may be able to find alien life forms if there are any. The Kepler Mission may help do that.
Orin

Life forms are not limited to water, oxygen, carbon. Silicone and methane are possibilities, and the universe has plenty of that stuff. And really, we are discovering brand new life form on earth in this decade .. so what the variety of forms life may take in the universe are unimaginable.

[orin stepanek]

I think once we find these Earth sized planets and the ones with oxygen and water; then we may be able to find alien life forms if there are any. The Kepler Mission may help do that.
Orin

Life forms are not limited to water, oxygen, carbon. Silicone and methane are possibilities, and the universe has plenty of that stuff. And really, we are discovering brand new life form on earth in this decade .. so what the variety of forms life may take in the universe are unimaginable.

It would really be interesting to find out. 8) I believe spores could even be floating in space between the stars.

Orin

[aristarchusinexile]

I think once we find these Earth sized planets and the ones with oxygen and water; then we may be able to find alien life forms if there are any. The Kepler Mission may help do that.
Orin

Life forms are not limited to water, oxygen, carbon. Silicone and methane are possibilities, and the universe has plenty of that stuff. And really, we are discovering brand new life form on earth in this decade .. so what the variety of forms life may take in the universe are unimaginable.

It would really be interesting to find out. 8) I believe spores could even be floating in space between the stars.

Orin

Spores in space are said to be totally there. How about magic mushroom beings? (A short lived species).

[Doum]

by aristarchusinexile on Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:56 pm
"Spores in space are said to be totally there"

- I think it is said to be possible but not totally sure it is there. Totally mean for sure and i didnt read that anywhere. Please show me the article so i can read it. Thank!

Here is a link on Silicone as a possible life form.

http://www.daviddarling.info/encycloped ... nlife.html

Aint sure it is possible to have life form from silicone. Earth have silicone and carbon and yet carbon life form exist and no silicone life form have been found yet. Here is a NASA article about that silicone life form possibility.

http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/astrobio/feat_q ... n_life.cfm

For more google "silicone life form"

Enjoy.

[aristarchusinexile]

Hi Duom,

From your reference, ..."So, while the chances for silicon-based life may be slim..." I agree from what I've read in other sources (none of which I can point you to) that chances are slim, but, considering the vastness of the universe, and the number of planets of all types and situations there are, and the strangeness of life forms being discovered today on this planet we live on, I think even a 1/100,000,000,000 (100 billion, Canadian-European billion of one thousand millions) chance of silicone based life is enough to easily probablize silicon civiliations on millions of planets.

Also, one of your referenced authors uses the phrase, "... life as we know it ...". I think this is an unfortunate boundary which most people can't penetrate, the boundary perhaps becoming more dense as specialized higher education prevails in its exclusion of the imagination which is of utomost importance in true science. First reports describing animals by Eropeans exploring Africa, for instance, were met with outright ridicule. The largest life form on our planet is said to be a fungus covering tens of square miles, perhaps hundreds.

Spores in space? As easy as a meteorite striking Mars, which is known to have had a long period suitable for life. This is right in our own backard. Spores survive drought and even radiation in space .. so .. they are up there .. they will be found.

[aristarchusinexile]

Life forms - who ever would have imagined!?
Sweet! Researchers say cotton candy may help labs grow tissue

Malcolm Ritter, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK - Cotton candy has delighted children for a century. Now it may have found a new role: helping scientists grow replacement tissues for people.

The flossy stuff may be just right for creating networks of blood vessels within laboratory-grown bone, skin, muscle or fat for breast reconstruction, researchers suggest.
Dr. Jason Spector of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York and Leon Bellan of Cornell University present their preliminary research in a paper published online this week by the journal Soft Matter.
Here's how their technique would work:
First, you pour a thick liquid chemical over a wad of cotton candy. Let the liquid solidify into a chunk, and put that in warm water to dissolve the candy. That leaves tiny channels where the strands of candy used to be. So you have a chunk of material with a network of fine channels within.
Next, line these channels with cells to create artificial blood vessels. And seed the solid chunk with immature cells of whatever tissue you're trying to make. The block is biodegradable, and as it disappears, it will gradually be replaced by growing tissue. In the end, you get a piece of tissue permeated with tiny blood vessels.

[Chris Peterson]

Here is a link on Silicone as a possible life form...

While there are a number of exotic dancers who might be considered silicone-based lifeforms, I think the suggestion of a non-carbon alternative is for the element silicon - quite a different thing!

[neufer]

Here is a link on Silicone as a possible life form.
http://www.daviddarling.info/encycloped ... nlife.html

Aint sure it is possible to have life form from silicone. Earth have silicone and carbon and yet carbon life form exist and no silicone life form have been found yet. Here is a NASA article about that silicone life form possibility.
http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/astrobio/feat_q ... n_life.cfm

While there are a number of exotic dancers who might be considered silicone-based lifeforms,
I think the suggestion of a non-carbon alternative is for the element silicon - quite a different thing!

Silicon based:


Carbon alternative:

"Smores in space are said to be totally there"

[bystander]

I'm all for more carbon alternatives and making s'mores

[Doum]

Hurray for carbon life form. Law of physics (In chemical property in this case)favor carbon life form i think (And law of physics apply everywhre in the universe). As for the rest, it's pure speculation or belief (Like a religion). So in saying i believe in other carbon life form existing elsewhere in the univers does not make it so. Silicone is so different then carbon (chemicaly speaking) that i dont think life form can exist from it. (I dont beleive it). You beleive it. So saying it dont change a thing. What they say is that silicone is closest to what carbon can do but it is still far away form what carbon can do. But i will still enjoy old or new sci-fi movie about silicone life form.

[BMAONE23]

Here is a link on Silicone as a possible life form.
http://www.daviddarling.info/encycloped ... nlife.html


Silicon based:

Would this make a Silicon based civilization a "Horta Culture"???


This is what a Silicone based lifeform looks like

[orin stepanek]

Wow! !

I was not aware of the interest created. I think spores may be the way worlds can be populated. This of course is speculation.

Orin

[bystander]

Common Errors in "Star of Bethlehem" Planetarium Shows
by John Mosley, Griffith Observatory

<<The massing of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in 1604 was awaited with
anticipation. "Somee watched to correct their ephemerides, some for the
sake of pleasure, some because of the rarity of the occasion, some to
verify their predictions, and others, indeed, to see if there would be
a comet as had been expressly predicted by the astrology of the Arabs,"

Kepler wrote (Opera Omnia vol. II, p.617, as quoted by
BurkeGaffney). Mars came first into conjunction with Saturn,
on September 26, and then with Jupiter on October 9.
Although Kepler missed this last event because of clouds,
others in Europe saw the two planets and noted nothing amiss.

On October 10 a new star, as bright as Jupiter, was spotted essentially
between Jupiter & Saturn, which themselves were only 9 degrees apart.

Kepler observed it carefully until it faded into the sun's glare
the following year, and later wrote a book De Stella Nova in
Pede Serpentarii (About the New Star in the Serpent Holder's Foot).

While writing this book, Kepler came across a work by Laurence
Suslyga of Poland that argued that Christ was born in 4 B.C.
Kepler noticed that this was shortly after a triple conjunction that
he calculated had occurred in 7 B.C., and wondered if there was a
connection. In 1614 he published his conclusions: the triple conjunction
of 7 B.C. was followed by a massing of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in 6
B.C., and just as the conjunction and massing of 1603 4 had produced a
new star, so the events of 7 6 B.C. had produced a miraculous nova, and
THAT NOVA was the Star of Bethlehem. The biblical triple conjunction
took place in Pisces, but the massing that followed took place
in Aries -- one of the fiery signs -- just as the massing
of 1604 had also taken place in a fiery sign.

Kepler believed that the star over Bethlehem was a nova placed
there specifically to alert and guide the magi. He wrote,
"I do not doubt but that God would have condescended
to cater to the credulity of the Chaldeans.>>

And we are naming a satellite after this guy?

[neufer]

And we are naming a satellite after this guy?

Why not? He already as an asteroid, two craters &
a College of Astrological Arts & Sciences named for him:
--------------------------------------------
1134 Kepler is an asteroid discovered by Max Wolf on September 25, 1929.
--------------------------------------------
Kepler is a crater on Mars. Located at 46.8° S, 140.9° E, Kepler is 233 km wide and was named in 1973.
--------------------------------------------
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMBGLVT0PE_in ... l#subhead1

<<Kepler is a young lunar impact crater that lies between the Oceanus Procellarum to the west and Mare Insularum in the east. To the southeast is the crater Encke. Kepler is most notable for the prominent ray system that covers the surrounding mare. The rays extend for well over 300 kilometers, overlapping the rays from other craters. Kepler has a small rampart of ejecta surrounding the exterior of its high rim. The outer wall is not quite circular, and possesses a slightly polygonal form. The interior walls of Kepler are slumped and slightly terraced, descending to an uneven floor and a minor central rise. One of the rays from Tycho, when extended across the Oceanus Procellarum, intersects this crater. This was a factor in the choice of the crater's name when Giovanni Riccioli was creating his system of lunar nomenclature, as Kepler used the observations of Tycho Brahe while devising his three laws of planetary motion. On Riccioli's maps, this crater was named Keplerus, and the surrounding skirt of higher albedo terrain was named Insulara Ventorum.>>
--------------------------------------------
<<Kepler College(formerly Kepler College of Astrological Arts and Sciences) is an institution of higher learning approved by the state of Washington that focuses on interdisciplinary liberal arts with an emphasis on the history of astrology. It is located in Seattle, WA and is named after Johannes Kepler. Kepler College's integrated and coordinated programs of study focus on a cross-cultural comparison of the history, astronomy, social and cultural role of astrology for the past 3000 years, including how it has been used in the sciences, politics, medicine, literature and other social institutions. As part of this study, the mathematics and application of astrology is examined using techniques ranging from the Vedic to Western systems and from the Hellenistic period through to modern day.

John Silber, the rather 'hard line' & controversial chancellor of Boston University wrote, "The promoters of Kepler College have honored Kepler not for his strength but for his weakness, as if a society advocating drunkenness named a school for Ernest Hemingway." Silber noted, "The fact is that astrology, whether judged by its theory or its practice, is bunkum. In a free society there is no reason to prevent those who wish to learn nonsense from finding teachers who want to make money peddling nonsense. But it is inexcusable for the government to certify teachers of nonsense as competent or to authorize — that is, endorse — the granting of degrees in nonsense."The vice provost for research at the University of Washington, Alvin Kwiram, called the school "ludicrous", saying, "What if we had a college of quack medicine?"

The choice of name is also somewhat ironic, as Johannes Kepler actually took a rather dim view of astrology. Sir Oliver Lodge writes of Kepler that "He is continually attacking and throwing sarcasm at astrology, but it was the only thing for which people would pay him, and on it after a fashion he lived.">>
--------------------------------------------

[aristarchusinexile]

:lol: Hurray for carbon life form. Law of physics (In chemical property in this case)favor carbon life form i think (And law of physics apply everywhre in the universe). As for the rest, it's pure speculation or belief (Like a religion). So in saying i believe in other carbon life form existing elsewhere in the univers does not make it so. Silicone is so different then carbon (chemicaly speaking) that i dont think life form can exist from it. (I dont beleive it). You beleive it. So saying it dont change a thing. What they say is that silicone is closest to what carbon can do but it is still far away form what carbon can do. But i will still enjoy old or new sci-fi movie about silicone life form.

From a link. "The oxidation of silicon, however, yields a solid because, immediately upon formation, silicon dioxide organizes itself into a lattice in which each silicon atom is surrounded by four oxygens. Disposing of such a substance would pose a major respiratory challenge."

What if 'disposal' of the silicon dioxide were accomplished simply by incorporating it into the life form instead of 'disposing' of it? I think of the sea creatures which build shells around themselves .. the shells growing larger as the creature ages.

[aristarchusinexile]

"Smores in space are said to be totally there"

Well, they could be .. we've been beaming recipes into space for a few decades now .. it's not difficult to imagine the Spacians picking up the recipe .. perhaps even 'improving' on it with silicone.

[neufer]

By CBS News space consultant William Harwood

<<Lighting up the night sky, a Delta 2 rocket roared to life and vaulted away from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station late today, boosting a powerful space telescope into orbit around the Sun for a $591 million mission to search for Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars.

"I think people everywhere want to know whether, with all the stars out there, do they have planets that are Earth-sized?" said principal investigator William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center. "Are Earths frequent or are they rare? And this gives us that answer. It's the next step in mankind's exploration of the galaxy."

The Kepler spacecraft's three-and-a-half-year mission began on time at 10:49:57 p.m. with a crackling roar and a torrent of fire that briefly turned night into day along Florida's space coast. Putting on a spectacular weekend sky show, the United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket quickly climbed from its seaside launch pad and arced away to the east over the Atlantic Ocean as it streaked into space.

Just over one minute after launch, six solid-fuel strap-on boosters that were ignited at liftoff to assist the Delta's first-stage engine burned out and fell away while a final set of three ignited for another one-minute burn. The first-stage engine shut down as planned four-and-a-half minutes after launch, and the ascent continued on the power of the Delta's compact second stage.

Two second-stage burns were required before Kepler and its solid-fuel third-stage motor were released for a final one-and-a-half-minute firing to boost the craft out of Earth's orbit. Spacecraft separation came on time at 11:52 p.m. At that point, Kepler was moving out at a blistering 6.2 miles per second.

The Delta 2 record now stands at 139 successful missions against just two failures.

"And now we have plenty of handshakes going on here in the mission director's center because we have confirmation of spacecraft separation," said NASA launch commentator George Diller. "It did occur on time at 61 minutes 49 seconds. ... So at this point, the Kepler team now really gets to work."

Engineers will spend about two months checking out and calibrating Kepler's complex systems before the mission begins in earnest.

Trailing the Earth in its orbit around the Sun, Kepler will aim a 95-megapixel camera on a patch of sky the size of an out-stretched hand that contains more than 4.5 million detectable stars. Of that total, the science team has picked some 300,000 that are of the right age, composition and brightness to host Earth-like planets. Over the life of the mission, more than 100,000 of those will be actively monitored by Kepler.


The spacecraft's camera will not take pictures like other space telescopes. Instead, it will act as a photometer, continually monitoring the brightness of candidate stars in its wide field of view and the slight dimming that will result if planets happen to pass in front.

By studying subtle changes in brightness from such planetary transits and the timing of repeated cycles, scientists can ferret out potential Earth-like worlds in habitable-zone orbits.

The probability of finding sun-like stars with Earth-like planets in orbits similar to ours - and aligned so that Kepler can "see" them - is about one-half of 1 percent. Given the sample size, however, that still leaves hundreds of potential discoveries.

But it will take three-and-a-half years of around-the-clock observations to capture the repeated cycles needed to confirm detection of an Earth-like world in an Earth-like orbit.

"There's a lot of desire in the science community to understand extra-terrestrial planets, not just find them," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for space science. "We've already found 300 or so, mostly from the ground. But now we're entering the stage of going beyond just proving that they exist. It's how many are out there, and perhaps the most important question of all, are there any 'Earths' out there?"

Named in honor of Johannes Kepler, the 17th century German astronomer who formulated the laws of planetary motion, NASA's newest science satellite weighs 2,320 pounds and measures 15.3 feet from top to bottom. It is equipped with four solar panels capable of generating 1,100 watts of power, a radiation-hardened PowerPC flight computer and a Ka-band communications link to relay science data back to Earth. The spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace of Boulder, Colo.

Kepler will pass the Moon's orbit in just two days as it heads into a 371-day orbit around the Sun, separating slowly from Earth. It will aim itself at a patch of sky near the left wing of Cygnus the Swan, midway between the stars Deneb and Vega.

And then, Kepler will simply stare at the same stars for three-and-a-half years.

"An Earth-like planet passing in front of a sun-like star is going to cause the brightness of that star to dim by only 1 part per 10,000," said Natalie Batalha, a Kepler co-investigator at San Jose State University. "That's like looking at a headlight from a great distance and trying to sense the brightness change when a flea crawls across the surface. But the Kepler instrument is designed to detect such small changes in brightness."

Kepler is capable of detecting Earth-like planets around stars ranging from 600 to 3,000 light years away.

The science team is particularly interested in planets that may orbit within a star's habitable zone. Habitable zones vary in location depending on a star's size and brilliance. By timing changes in a star's light as a transit occurs, scientists can figure out the size of a presumed planet's orbit and thus whether it falls in that star's habitable zone.

"The habitable zone is where we think water will be," Borucki said. "If you can find liquid water on the surface, we think we may very well find life there. So that zone is not too close to the star, because it's too hot and the water boils. Not too far away where the water's condensed and ice-covered, a planet covered with glaciers. It's the 'Goldilocks zone' - not too hot, not too cold, just right for life."

Weiler said Kepler is a pathfinder of sorts for more sophisticated missions that may one day study the atmospheres of Earth-like planets to look for signs of biological - or even industrial - activity.

"A lot of scientists out there would like to immediately go out and build very large telescopes, not just to find Earth-like planets but to study their atmospheres, to search for clues that there might be life on those planets," Weiler said. "The trouble is, most of these proposals start at about $5 billion and work upwards from there.

"Before we actually take the next step, looking for signs of life on Earth-like planets, we've got to be sure there are at least a few Earth-like planets out there. And that's why Kepler is so important. It's a rather small mission, a moderate mission (around $600 million), and it's really a pathfinder for future large space telescopes that will go after the question that we all have: Are we alone in the universe?">>

[orin stepanek]

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/e ... s/07080_00
worth watching!

Orin

[harry]

G'day orin

That was a nice video.

Also the kids got a kick out of the Kepler certification.

They are now part of history.

[neufer]

Bruce Betts: Kepler discovers its first five exoplanets
by Bruce Betts : Jan. 4, 2010

<<Congratulations to NASA's Kepler mission team on their announcement of the discovery of its first five exoplanets (planets around other stars). All five are "hot Jupiters," meaning that they are the sizes of the gas giants in our solar system, but are extremely close to their parent stars. These are the easiest for Kepler to discover, so not surprisingly the first to be announced. The discoveries are based on about six weeks worth of data.

Kepler uses the transit method of planet detection. The spacecraft stares at the same 150,000 stars over and over and looks for tiny dips in light that would indicate a transit of a planet in front of the parent star, blocking out some of the starlight. Science operations started in May 2009.

Transit light curves for Kepler's first five exoplanets

Kepler uses the transit photometry method to discover planets orbiting other stars. Credit: NASA

The new exoplanets, named Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b and 8b, range in size from similar to Neptune to larger than Jupiter, and have orbits ("year" lengths) ranging from 3.3 to 4.9 Earth days. Estimated temperatures of the planets range from 1,200 to 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,200 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit). All five of the exoplanets orbit stars hotter and larger than Earth's Sun. All have been confirmed as exoplanets by ground-based observatories.

Sizes and Temperatures of Kepler's first five exoplanets

On January 4, 2010, the Kepler mission announced its first five planet discoveries. All are hot Jupiters, gas-giant-sized planets orbiting very close to their host stars. Credit: NASA

Kepler's true goal is to find Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of Sun-like stars. That will take three years of data, and lots of Earth-based follow-up from projects like FINDS Exo-Earths. In the meantime, Kepler should continue to produce a multitude of discoveries of larger planets orbiting closer to their parent stars.

First Light for Kepler

Taken on April 8, 2009, these are the first images taken by the planet-hunting mission Kepler. The large image in the center shows a 100 degree square patch of sky containing an estimated 14 million stars. Kepler will observe this region continuously for more than 3 years, searching for signs of transiting planets in a group 100,000 pre-selected stars. The dark lines crisscrossing the image indicate the arrangement of the charged coupled devices (CCD's) in Kepler's powerful camera). The top left image is of a region 1000 times smaller than the full field, which contains the known transiting planet TrES-2. The image on the top right includes star cluster NGC 6791, at a distance of 13,000 lightyears from Earth. Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

[bystander]

NASA Releases Kepler Data on Potential Extrasolar Planets
NASA Ames Research Center (10-50AR) - 15 June 2010

NASA's Kepler Mission has released 43 days of science data on more than 156,000 stars. These stars are being monitored for subtle brightness changes as part of an ongoing search for Earth-like planets outside of our solar system.

Astronomers will use the new data to determine if orbiting planets are responsible for brightness variations in several hundred stars. These stars make up a full range of temperatures, sizes and ages. Many of them are stable, while others pulsate. Some show starspots, which are similar to sunspots, and a few produce flares that would sterilize their nearest planets.

Kepler, a space observatory, looks for the data signatures of planets by measuring tiny decreases in the brightness of stars when planets cross in front of, or transit them. The size of the planet can be derived from the change in the star's brightness.

The 28-member Kepler science team also is using ground-based telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope to perform follow-up observations on a specific set of 400 objects of interest. The star field that Kepler observes in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra can only be seen from ground-based observatories in spring through early fall. The data from these other observations will determine which of the candidates can be identified as planets. That data will be released to the scientific community in February 2011.

Without the additional information, candidates that are actual planets cannot be distinguished from false alarms, such as binary stars -- two stars that orbit each other. The size of the planetary candidates also can be only approximated until the size of the stars they orbit is determined from additional spectroscopic observations made by ground-based telescopes.

"I look forward to the scientific community analyzing the data and announcing new exoplanet results in the coming months," said Lia LaPiana, Kepler's program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

“This is the most precise, nearly continuous, longest and largest data set of stellar photometry ever,” said Kepler Deputy Principal Investigator David Koch of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. “The results will only get better as the duration of the data set grows with time.”

Kepler will continue conducting science operations until at least November 2012, searching for planets as small as Earth, including those that orbit stars in a warm habitable zone where liquid water could exist on the surface of the planet. Since transits of planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars occur about once a year and require three transits for verification, it is expected to take at least three years to locate and verify an Earth-size planet.

“The Kepler observations will tell us whether there are many stars with planets that could harbor life, or whether we might be alone in our galaxy,” said mission science principal investigator William Borucki of Ames.
...
To see the science data, visit: http://archive.stsci.edu/kepler

For more information about the Kepler mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

[bystander]

New Worlds to Explore? Kepler Spacecraft Finds 750 Exoplanet Candidates
Universe Today - 15 June 2010

The Kepler spacecraft has found over 750 candidates for extrasolar planets, and that is just from data collected in the first 43 days of the spacecraft's observations. "This is the biggest release of candidate planets that has ever happened," said William Borucki, Kepler's lead scientist. "The number of candidate planets is actually greater than all the planets that have been discovered in the last 15 years."

This is an astounding amount of potential exoplanets from data taken during such a short period of time, however Borucki added that they expect only about 50% of these candidates to actually turn out to be planets, as some may be eclipsing binary stars or other artifacts in the data. But still, even half would be the biggest group discovery of exoplanets ever.

And the exciting part is that 706 targets from this first data set have viable exoplanet candidates with sizes from as small as Earth to around the size of Jupiter. The team says the majority have radii less than half that of Jupiter.

The Kepler team has found so many candidates, they are sharing. They will keep the top 400 candidates to verify and confirm with observations using other telescopes – with observations done by Kepler team members. And today they have released the other 350 candidates, including five potential multiple planet systems.

However, some astronomers are upset about this and think the Kepler team should release all of their findings from the first year, as is typically done with NASA data.

Papers of Interest:

Characteristics of Kepler Planetary Candidates Based on the First Data Set:
The Majority are Found to be Neptune-Size and Smaller

lanl.arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1006.2799 > 14 Jun 2010
Five Kepler target stars that show multiple transiting exoplanet candidates

arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1006.2763 > 14 Jun 2010

[bystander]

Latest Kepler data includes over 700 exoplanet candidates
ars technica - 15 June 2010

Today should be a historic moment for the field of astronomy. With a single data release, the team behind NASA's Kepler instrument has nearly doubled the number of extrasolar planets we're aware of, including many that fall between the sizes of Earth and Neptune, a class of planets that was poorly represented in our existing collection. Instead, NASA's handling of the announcement appears to have been very confused, and attention will likely focus on the candidate planets that were left out: 400 objects that are even smaller than the ones being announced.

The decision to hold back on the most Earth-like objects had been made months ago. The intent is to allow the project scientists the chance to confirm these are not false positives and to have priority in publishing on the exoplanets. These candidates are mentioned only once in a draft paper that describes the data that is being released. Referring to Earth's radius as Re, the draft states, "those [stars] with the small-size candidates (ie, those with radii less than 1.5 Re), are among the 400 withheld targets and are thus not among those considered here."

That controversy aside, NASA's handling of the data release has been positively bizarre. Word of the hundreds of new planets in the data release appears to have been first disclosed by The New York Times. A NASA video describing the data appeared briefly on YouTube, but was then pulled, while two draft papers that describe some of the results appeared in the arXiv last night.

But, despite the apparent publicity, NASA has remained silent. There have been no releases about the data, and NASA's Kepler mission page still lists its planet count as an anemic five. It's not clear what exactly is going on with the space agency.