Kepler

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Re: Kepler

Post by orin stepanek » Thu Apr 05, 2012 9:54 pm

Thanks bystander; that's good news. Kepler already has found oodles of planets in the short time it has been in use. 8-) :)
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Re: Kepler

Post by Sam » Wed Jun 20, 2012 4:24 am

"No avian society ever develops space travel because it's impossible to focus on calculus when you could be outside flying." -Randall Munroe

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Re: Kepler

Post by owlice » Wed Jun 20, 2012 7:02 am

"This is an exciting time."

Indeed!!
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Re: Kepler

Post by orin stepanek » Wed Jun 20, 2012 11:48 am

more planets than you could shake a stick at! :lol2: :mrgreen: :wink:
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Re: Kepler

Post by bystander » Fri Aug 24, 2012 11:08 pm

41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View
NASA | Ames Research Center | Kepler | 2012 Aug 22
Two newly submitted studies verify 41 new transiting planets in 20 star systems. These results may increase the number of Kepler’s confirmed planets by more than 50 percent: to 116 planets hosted in 67 systems, over half of which contain more than one planet. The papers are currently under scientific peer-review.

Nineteen of the newly validated planetary systems have two closely spaced transiting planets and one system has three. Five of the systems are common to both of these independent studies.

The planets range from Earth-size to more than seven times the radius of Earth, but generally orbit so close to their parent stars that they are hot, inhospitable worlds.

The planets were confirmed by analyzing Transit Timing Variations (TTVs). In closely packed systems, the gravitational pull of the planets causes the acceleration or deceleration of a planet along its orbit. These "tugs" cause the orbital period of each planet to change from one orbit to the next. TTV demonstrates that two transiting planet candidates are in the same system and that their masses are planetary in nature.

“These systems, with their large gravitational interactions, give us important clues about how planetary systems form and evolve,” said lead researcher Jason Steffen, the Brinson postdoctoral fellow at Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics in Batavia, Ill. “This information helps us understand how our own solar system fits into the population of all planetary systems.”

The two research teams used data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, which measures dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, to search for transiting planets.

“The sheer volume of planet candidates being identified by Kepler is inspiring teams to look at the planet confirmation and characterization process differently. This TTV confirmation technique can be applied to large numbers of systems relatively quickly and with little or no follow-up observations from the ground,” said Natalie Batalha, Kepler mission scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. “Perhaps the bottleneck between identifying planet candidates and confirming them just got a little wider.”

The Transit Timing Variation (TTV) Planet-finding Technique Begins to Flower
NASA | Ames Research Center | Kepler | 2012 Aug 23

Transit Timing Observations from Kepler: VII. Confirmation of 27 planets in
13 multiplanet systems via Transit Timing Variations and orbital stability
- Jason H. Steffen et al Transit Timing Variation of Near-Resonant KOI Pairs:
Confirmation of 12 Multiple Planet Systems
- Ji-Wei Xie
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Kepler-47: Our First Binary Star 2-Planet System

Post by bystander » Wed Aug 29, 2012 6:23 pm

Kepler-47: Our First Binary Star 2-Planet System
NASA | Ames Research Center | Kepler | 2012 Aug 28
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Almost one year ago, 2011 September 15, the discovery of Kepler-16b was our first binary star (two stars orbiting each other) with a planet orbiting both stars (circumbinary). Now Kepler mission has discovered Kepler-47b and 47c, the first transiting circumbinary system — multiple planets orbiting two suns. To compound the excitement of the discovery, one of those planets is in the binary system's habitable zone (where liquid water may exist)!

"The presence of a full-fledged circumbinary planetary system orbiting Kepler-47 is an amazing discovery," Greg Laughlin, professor of Astrophysics and Planetary Science, University of California, Santa Cruz, Calif. "These planets are very difficult to form using the currently accepted paradigm, and I believe that theorists, myself included, will be going back to the drawing board to try to improve our understanding of how planets are assembled in dusty circumbinary disks."

"Unlike our Sun, many stars are part of multiple-star systems where two or more stars orbit one another. The question has always been: do they have planets and planetary systems? This Kepler discovery proves that they do," said William Borucki, Kepler mission principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "In our search for habitable planets, we have found more opportunities for life to exist."

Jerome Orosz, associate professor of astronomy at San Diego State University and lead author of the discovery paper published in Science, explained that "In contrast to a single planet orbiting a single star, the planet in a circumbinary system must transit a 'moving target.' As a consequence, time intervals between the transits and their durations can vary substantially, sometimes short, other times long. That was the telltale sign that these planets are in circumbinary orbits."

While the inner planet, Kepler-47b, orbits in less than 50 days and must be a sweltering world, the outer planet, Kepler-47c, orbits every 303 days, putting it in the "habitable zone," where liquid water might exist. But Kepler-47c is slightly larger than Neptune, and hence in the realm of gaseous giant planets, difficult to imagine as suitable for life. That does not preclude the chance that it has large a moon with a solid surface and liquid water lakes or seas. Kepler-16b was likened to Tatooine, Luke Skywalker's home planet in the movie Star Wars—a world with a double sunset. Kepler-47c suggests a different possible scene: our hero standing on a moon, gazing at a double sunset, with a Neptune-class planet rising behind her.

The research team used data from the Kepler space telescope, which measures dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, to search for transiting planets. Using ground-based telescopes at the McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas at Austin, they made crucial spectroscopic observations to determine characteristics of the stars in the binary system which is 4,900 light-years from Earth. They are orbiting each other very fast, eclipsing each other every 7.5 days. One star is similar to the Sun in size, but only 84 percent as bright. The second star is a red dwarf star only one-third the size of the Sun and less than one percent as bright.

According to William Welsh, a co-author of the discovery paper, the number of planets discovered in multiple star systems is growing—about 70 to date. In binary star systems, planets are of two types: P-type: a planet that orbits both stars (circumbinary, like Kepler-47b and c)
S-type: a planet that orbits just one of the stars (referred to as circumstellar).

Kepler-47bc

Kepler Discovers Multiple Planets Orbiting a Pair of Stars
NASA | Ames Research Center | Kepler | 2012 Aug 28

Kepler Discovers Planetary System Orbiting Two Suns
San Diego State University | 2012 Aug 28

Astronomers find first multi-planet system around a binary star
McDonald Observatory | University of Texas | 2012 Aug 28

Kepler Discovers Planetary System Orbiting Two Suns
International Astronomical Union | 2012 Aug 29

Astronomers Find Two Planets Orbiting a Two-Star System
University of Hawaii | Institute for Astronomy | 2012 Aug 29

Planetary system orbiting two suns discovered by astronomers
Smithsonian Institution | 2012 Aug 30

Kepler-47: A Transiting Circumbinary Multi-Planet System - Jerome A. Orosz et al
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Astrophile: Two planets with two suns up odds for life

Post by bystander » Wed Aug 29, 2012 9:51 pm

Two planets with two suns up odds for life
New Scientist | Astrophile | Lisa Grossman | 2012 Aug 29
Objects: An unusual exoplanet pair
Orbits: Circling two sun-like stars
Plot twist: Chance for a habitable moon

The sun rises on Kepler-47c's largest moon, turning the sky a rosy pink. The moon's host planet, a gas giant about the size of Uranus, hangs huge in the sky as always, its churning storms a constant sight for the inhabitants below. A single bright object – the system's innermost planet – is just visible near the sun, fading fast in the morning light.

Then the other sun rises.

This science-fiction scene could be playing out for real about 4900 light years from Earth, where a pair of planets jointly orbits both stars in a binary system.

Astronomers have previously found single planets with two suns, like Tatooine in Star Wars. But this is the first time a binary pair has been found to host a multi-planet system.

What's more, one of the planets is in the stars' habitable zone, the region around the suns where temperatures are just right for liquid water – and therefore maybe life – to exist on a planet's surface. The discovery boosts the odds of finding habitable planets in our galaxy.

"Binary stars are extremely common," accounting for about half the stars in the sky, says Dan Fabrycky of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not on the study team. "Ostensibly, you can now double the population of habitable planets."

Dubbed Kepler-47c, the new-found planet is almost certainly a gas giant, based on its estimated size. If it has any rocky moons, though, they could be ripe for life, like Star Wars' Endor or Avatar's Pandora.

One of the system's discoverers, Jerome Orosz of San Diego State University in California, thinks there's a strong case for this storyline.

"If I came back from France and told you that people there wore shoes, you would not be surprised. After all, people around here wear shoes. Likewise, nearly every planet in the solar system has moons. If you went to Kepler-47c and reported the existence of moons, it would not surprise me in the least."

Temperature swings

Orosz found the new worlds while looking at data from the planet-hunting Kepler space telescope, which searches for stars with planets that cross in front of them, or transit, as seen from Earth.

The team calculates that the inner planet, Kepler-47b, is about three times the width of Earth, and orbits its two suns once every 49.5 days. The outer planet, Kepler-47c, is larger – about 4.6 times Earth's radius – and orbits once every 303 days.

These orbits put the planets at safe distances from their chaotic parent stars, which are pulling each other around in a constant cosmic waltz.

Seen from a hypothetical moon, the suns would probably follow each other across the sky, rising or setting within 15 to 30 minutes of each other, assuming a 24-hour day, Orosz says.

There would be more daylight than darkness in general, though when the larger, brighter sun sets, the light might look a bit like the semi-darkness of a partial eclipse.

"Your seasons are going to be really odd," Orosz adds. "The distance between you and the big star changes constantly, so the amount of heat you get can change by several per cent over the course of a binary orbit, which is a week."

What that means for any potential Ewoks or Na'vi depends on the moon's atmosphere and how well it retains heat. But it could mean that a Monday feels like August in Miami, but Wednesday would feel like November in London, before temperatures become hot again by Sunday.

And if the moon – like ours – always showed the same face to its host planet, then for half the population the planet would be permanently visible in the sky, Fabrycky says.

"You know those beautiful pictures of Jupiter, with the swirls and jets?" he says. "They would see that all the time."

Journal reference: Science Express, DOI: 10.1126/science.1128380

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Re: Kepler

Post by orin stepanek » Wed Sep 12, 2012 9:24 pm

Oh my! Two suns being orbited by two planets; one in the habitable zone! Only trouble it is a Neptunium size planet; though there may be moons that have water and lakes!!! :wink: :D September 15, the discovery of Kepler-16b was our first binary star (two stars orbiting each other) with a planet orbiting both stars (circumbinary). Now Kepler mission has discovered Kepler-47b and 47c, the first transiting circumbinary system — multiple planets orbiting two suns. To compound the excitement of the discovery, one of those planets is in the binary system's habitable zone (where liquid water may exist)!


Kepler-47 system diagram


Kepler-47 system diagram. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle


"The presence of a full-fledged circumbinary planetary system orbiting Kepler-47 is an amazing discovery," Greg Laughlin, professor of Astrophysics and Planetary Science, University of California, Santa Cruz, Calif. "These planets are very difficult to form using the currently accepted paradigm, and I believe that theorists, myself included, will be going back to the drawing board to try to improve our understanding of how planets are assembled in dusty circumbinary disks."

"Unlike our Sun, many stars are part of multiple-star systems where two or more stars orbit one another. The question has always been: do they have planets and planetary systems? This Kepler discovery proves that they do," said William Borucki, Kepler mission principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "In our search for habitable planets, we have found more opportunities for life to exist."


Photo of Jerry Orosz


Jerome A. Orosz


Jerome Orosz, associate professor of astronomy at San Diego State University and lead author of the discovery paper published in Science, explained that "In contrast to a single planet orbiting a single star, the planet in a circumbinary system must transit a 'moving target.' As a consequence, time intervals between the transits and their durations can vary substantially, sometimes short, other times long. That was the telltale sign that these planets are in circumbinary orbits."

While the inner planet, Kepler-47b, orbits in less than 50 days and must be a sweltering world, the outer planet, Kepler-47c, orbits every 303 days, putting it in the "habitable zone," where liquid water might exist. But Kepler-47c is slightly larger than Neptune, and hence in the realm of gaseous giant planets, difficult to imagine as suitable for life. That does not preclude the chance that it has large a moon with a solid surface and liquid water lakes or seas. Kepler-16b was likened to Tatooine, Luke Skywalker's home planet in the movie Star Wars—a world with a double sunset. Kepler-47c suggests a different possible scene: our hero standing on a moon, gazing at a double sunset, with a Neptune-class planet rising behind her.

The research team used data from the Kepler space telescope, which measures dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, to search for transiting planets. Using ground-based telescopes at the McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas at Austin, they made crucial spectroscopic observations to determine characteristics of the stars in the binary system which is 4,900 light-years from Earth. They are orbiting each other very fast, eclipsing each other every 7.5 days. One star is similar to the Sun in size, but only 84 percent as bright. The second star is a red dwarf star only one-third the size of the Sun and less than one percent as bright.


photo of William Wlesh


William F. Welsh


According to William Welsh, a co-author of the discovery paper, the number of planets discovered in multiple star systems is growing—about 70 to date. In binary star systems, planets are of two types: P-type: a planet that orbits both stars (circumbinary, like Kepler-47b and c)
S-type: a planet that orbits just one of the stars (referred to as circumstellar)

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=29418
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Science@NASA: Weird Planets

Post by bystander » Thu Sep 13, 2012 3:03 am

Weird Planets
NASA Science News | Dr. Tony Phillips | 2012 Sep 12
News flash: The Milky Way galaxy just got a little weirder.
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Back in 2011 astronomers were amazed when NASA's Kepler spacecraft discovered a planet orbiting a double star system. Such a world, they realized, would have double sunsets and sunrises just like the fictional planet Tatooine in the movie Star Wars. Yet this planet was real.

Now Kepler has discovered a whole system of planets orbiting a double star.

The star system, known as Kepler-47, is located 4,900 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. Two stars orbit one another at the center of the system: One is similar to the sun in size, but only 84 percent as bright. The second star is smaller, only one-third the size of the sun and less than 1 percent as bright. Kepler found two planets orbiting this mismatched pair.

"The presence of a full-fledged planetary system orbiting Kepler-47 is an amazing discovery," says Greg Laughlin, professor of Astrophysics and Planetary Science at the University of California in Santa Cruz. “This is going to change the way we think about the formation of planets.”

The inner planet, Kepler-47b, closely circles the pair of stars, completing each orbit in less than 50 days. Astronomers think it is a sweltering world, where the destruction of methane in its super-heated atmosphere might lead to a thick global haze. Kepler-47b is about three times the size of Earth.

The outer planet, Kepler-47c, orbits every 303 days. This puts it in the system's habitable zone, a band of orbits that are “just right” for liquid water to exist on the surface of a planet. But does this planet even have a surface? Possibly not. The astronomers think it is a gas giant slightly larger than Neptune.

The discovery of planets orbiting double stars means that planetary systems are even weirder and more abundant than previously thought.

"Many stars are part of multiple-star systems where two or more stars orbit one another. The question always has been -- do they have planets and planetary systems?" says William Borucki, Kepler mission principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center. "This Kepler discovery proves that they do."

Our own sun is a single, isolated star, with a relatively simple gravitational field that rules the motions of the planets orbiting it.

But, as Borucki points out, not all stars are single. Astronomers estimate that more than half of the stars in the galaxy have companions. There are double, triple and even quadruple star systems. Any planets in such systems would have to navigate a complex gravitational field, tugged in multiple directions by multiple stars. In fact, for many years, astronomers doubted that planets could even form in such an environment.

Kepler-47 erases those doubts—and poses a conundrum: "These planets are very difficult to form using the currently accepted paradigm,” says Laughlin. “I believe that theorists, myself included, will be going back to the drawing board to try to improve our understanding of how planets are assembled in the dusty gaseous disks that surround many young stars.”

The Kepler spacecraft is on a mission to find Earth-like planets that might support life. Says Borucki: "In our search for habitable worlds, we have just found more opportunities for life to exist."
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NASA: Kepler Completes Prime Mission, Begins Extended Missio

Post by bystander » Wed Nov 14, 2012 10:53 pm

Kepler Completes Prime Mission, Begins Extended Mission
NASA Ames Research Center | Kepler | 2012 Nov 14
NASA is marking two milestones in the search for planets like Earth; the successful completion of the Kepler Space Telescope's 3 1/2- year prime mission and the beginning of an extended mission that could last as long as four years.
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Re: Kepler

Post by orin stepanek » Thu Jan 03, 2013 1:15 pm

I've been hoping for some Kepler news releases; but the site seems to be quiet since the end of November! :?
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Re: Kepler

Post by Beyond » Thu Jan 03, 2013 4:46 pm

They're probably just busy counting all the new planets they've found. :mrgreen:
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Planets Abound: Billions and Billions of Planets

Post by bystander » Fri Jan 04, 2013 12:27 am

Billions and Billions of Planets
NASA | JPL-Caltech | 2013 Jan 03

Planets Abound
Caltech | 2013 Jan 03

Look up at the night sky and you'll see stars, sure. But you're also seeing planets—billions and billions of them. At least.
That's the conclusion of a new study by astronomers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) that provides yet more evidence that planetary systems are the cosmic norm. The team made their estimate while analyzing planets orbiting a star called Kepler-32—planets that are representative, they say, of the vast majority in the galaxy and thus serve as a perfect case study for understanding how most planets form.

"There's at least 100 billion planets in the galaxy—just our galaxy," says John Johnson, assistant professor of planetary astronomy at Caltech and coauthor of the study, which was recently accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. "That's mind-boggling."

"It's a staggering number, if you think about it," adds Jonathan Swift, a postdoc at Caltech and lead author of the paper. "Basically there's one of these planets per star."

The planetary system in question, which was detected by the Kepler space telescope, contains five planets. The existence of two of those planets have already been confirmed by other astronomers. The Caltech team confirmed the remaining three, then analyzed the five-planet system and compared it to other systems found by the Kepler mission.

The planets orbit a star that is an M dwarf—a type that accounts for about three-quarters of all stars in the Milky Way. The five planets, which are similar in size to Earth and orbit close to their star, are also typical of the class of planets that the telescope has discovered orbiting other M dwarfs, Swift says. Therefore, the majority of planets in the galaxy probably have characteristics comparable to those of the five planets.

While this particular system may not be unique, what does set it apart is its coincidental orientation: the orbits of the planets lie in a plane that's positioned such that Kepler views the system edge-on. Due to this rare orientation, each planet blocks Kepler -32's starlight as it passes between the star and the Kepler telescope.

By analyzing changes in the star's brightness, the astronomers were able to determine the planets' characteristics, such as their sizes and orbital periods. This orientation therefore provides an opportunity to study the system in great detail—and because the planets represent the vast majority of planets that are thought to populate the galaxy, the team says, the system also can help astronomers better understand planet formation in general.

"I usually try not to call things 'Rosetta stones,' but this is as close to a Rosetta stone as anything I've seen," Johnson says. "It's like unlocking a language that we're trying to understand—the language of planet formation."

One of the fundamental questions regarding the origin of planets is how many of them there are. Like the Caltech group, other teams of astronomers have estimated that there is roughly one planet per star, but this is the first time researchers have made such an estimate by studying M-dwarf systems, the most numerous population of planets known.

To do that calculation, the Caltech team determined the probability that an M-dwarf system would provide Kepler-32's edge-on orientation. Combining that probability with the number of planetary systems Kepler is able to detect, the astronomers calculated that there is, on average, one planet for every one of the approximately 100 billion stars in the galaxy. But their analysis only considers planets that are in close orbits around M dwarfs—not the outer planets of an M-dwarf system, or those orbiting other kinds of stars. As a result, they say, their estimate is conservative. In fact, says Swift, a more accurate estimate that includes data from other analyses could lead to an average of two planets per star.

M-dwarf systems like Kepler-32's are quite different from our own solar system. For one, M dwarfs are cooler and much smaller than the sun. Kepler-32, for example, has half the mass of the sun and half its radius. The radii of its five planets range from 0.8 to 2.7 times that of Earth, and those planets orbit extremely close to their star. The whole system fits within just over a tenth of an astronomical unit (the average distance between Earth and the sun)—a distance that is about a third of the radius of Mercury's orbit around the sun. The fact that M-dwarf systems vastly outnumber other kinds of systems carries a profound implication, according to Johnson, which is that our solar system is extremely rare. "It's just a weirdo," he says.

The fact that the planets in M-dwarf systems are so close to their stars doesn't necessarily mean that they're fiery, hellish worlds unsuitable for life, the astronomers say. Indeed, because M dwarfs are small and cool, their temperate zone—also known as the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water might exist—is also further inward. Even though only the outermost of Kepler-32's five planets lies in its temperate zone, many other M dwarf systems have more planets that sit right in their temperate zones.

As for how the Kepler-32 system formed, no one knows yet. But the team says its analysis places constraints on possible mechanisms. For example, the results suggest that the planets all formed farther away from the star than they are now, and migrated inward over time.

Like all planets, the ones around Kepler-32 formed from a proto-planetary disk—a disk of dust and gas that clumped up into planets around the star. The astronomers estimated that the mass of the disk within the region of the five planets was about as much as that of three Jupiters. But other studies of proto-planetary disks have shown that three Jupiter masses can't be squeezed into such a tiny area so close to a star, suggesting to the Caltech team that the planets around Kepler-32 initially formed farther out.

Another line of evidence relates to the fact that M dwarfs shine brighter and hotter when they are young, when planets would be forming. Kepler-32 would have been too hot for dust—a key planet-building ingredient—to even exist in such close proximity to the star. Previously, other astronomers had determined that the third and fourth planets from the star are not very dense, meaning that they are likely made of volatile compounds such as carbon dioxide, methane, or other ices and gases, the Caltech team says. However, those volatile compounds could not have existed in the hotter zones close to the star.

Finally, the Caltech astronomers discovered that three of the planets have orbits that are related to one another in a very specific way. One planet's orbital period lasts twice as long as another's, and the third planet's lasts three times as long as the latter's. Planets don't fall into this kind of arrangement immediately upon forming, Johnson says. Instead, the planets must have started their orbits farther away from the star before moving inward over time and settling into their current configuration.

"You look in detail at the architecture of this very special planetary system, and you're forced into saying these planets formed farther out and moved in," Johnson explains.

The implications of a galaxy chock full of planets are far-reaching, the researchers say. "It's really fundamental from an origins standpoint," says Swift, who notes that because M dwarfs shine mainly in infrared light, the stars are invisible to the naked eye. "Kepler has enabled us to look up at the sky and know that there are more planets out there than stars we can see."

Characterizing the Cool KOIs IV: Kepler-32 as a prototype for the formation of
compact planetary systems throughout the Galaxy
- Jonathan J. Swift et al
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Re: Planets Abound: Billions and Billions of Planets

Post by neufer » Fri Jan 04, 2013 5:01 am

bystander wrote:Billions and Billions of Planets
NASA | JPL-Caltech | 2013 Jan 03

Planets Abound
Caltech | 2013 Jan 03
"There's at least 100 billion planets in the galaxy—just our galaxy," says John Johnson, assistant professor of planetary astronomy at Caltech and coauthor of the study, which was recently accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. "That's mind-boggling."

"It's a staggering number, if you think about it," adds Jonathan Swift, a postdoc at Caltech and lead author of the paper. "Basically there's one of these planets per star."

The planetary system in question, which was detected by the Kepler space telescope, contains five planets. The existence of two of those planets have already been confirmed by other astronomers. The Caltech team confirmed the remaining three, then analyzed the five-planet system and compared it to other systems found by the Kepler mission.

The planets orbit a star that is an M dwarf—a type that accounts for about three-quarters of all stars in the Milky Way.
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Re: Kepler

Post by Ann » Fri Jan 04, 2013 6:48 am

The fact that M-dwarf systems vastly outnumber other kinds of systems carries a profound implication, according to Johnson, which is that our solar system is extremely rare. "It's just a weirdo," he says.
That's what I've felt for a long time. Isn't it remarkable that we are in orbit around a G-type star, when M dwarfs are vastly more common?

There are five ways of looking at this, I think. One is that our Earth is a very rare kind of planet for a number of reasons, one of which is that it orbits a G-type star. This might also mean that planets similar to the Earth are exceedingly rare in the Milky Way. We are special! :D

Another way of looking at it is to think that life is the norm in the universe, and if we are here even though we orbit a G-type star, then there must be incredible numbers of other civilizations in our galaxy, most of them orbiting an M-type star.:rocketship:

A third way of looking at it is to say that habitable worlds follow a sort of Bell curve, and the fact that we are in orbit around a G-type star is no more surprising than the fact that a small number of students get academic scores that are quite unlike the scores of most students.

A fourth way of looking at it is to say that life typically thrives underground, and then it doesn't matter what kind of star it orbits, or even if it orbits a star at all. (But that would still set us apart, since there is so much life on the surface of the Earth.) :tree:

A fifth way of looking at it is to say that we don't understand very well what life requires and how it evolves, so we should shut our mouths about what kind of stars can be orbited by planets that are suitable hosts for life. :?:

But I still feel pretty special! :D

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Re: Kepler

Post by Chris Peterson » Fri Jan 04, 2013 3:34 pm

Ann wrote:
The fact that M-dwarf systems vastly outnumber other kinds of systems carries a profound implication, according to Johnson, which is that our solar system is extremely rare. "It's just a weirdo," he says.
That's what I've felt for a long time. Isn't it remarkable that we are in orbit around a G-type star, when M dwarfs are vastly more common?
I don't see it as remarkable. That our type of star is statistically rare just means there are millions of them in the galaxy, not billions. That we find ourselves around a "rare" star type is pretty meaningless- like the mind games behind the anthropic principle. We are, after all, where we are.
A fifth way of looking at it is to say that we don't understand very well what life requires and how it evolves, so we should shut our mouths about what kind of stars can be orbited by planets that are suitable hosts for life. :?:
I can't imagine any scientist supporting that!
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Ann
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Re: Kepler

Post by Ann » Fri Jan 04, 2013 5:53 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
Ann wrote:A fifth way of looking at it is to say that we don't understand very well what life requires and how it evolves, so we should shut our mouths about what kind of stars can be orbited by planets that are suitable hosts for life. :?:
I can't imagine any scientist supporting that!
That was sloppy wording on my part. I meant that we can't predict where we may find conditions suitable for life. Personally I'm still pretty flabbergasted at the idea that large solar system moon Titan, so far from the technically "habitable" part of the solar system, might be suitable for life.

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mjimih
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Re: Kepler

Post by mjimih » Fri Jan 04, 2013 6:52 pm

the chance for life, is it reduced around smaller systems at all due to such things as close proximity to a star's radiation, or the generally smaller planets being able to hold onto liquid water or not, etc. Besides Earth being possibly more rare now, might "our" habitable zone actually be safer than zones closer to these smaller stars?

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Re: Kepler

Post by orin stepanek » Fri Jan 04, 2013 7:11 pm

For some reason my last attempt here didn't post! :? There are so many stars out there and it seems like almost every star has at least one planet that I would be very surprised it there weren't other stars with life forms habituating them! Whether or not there are other worlds near enough for us to determine if indeed they may have the right conditions for life remains to be discovered! 8-) :rocketship:
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Chris Peterson
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Re: Kepler

Post by Chris Peterson » Fri Jan 04, 2013 8:34 pm

mjimih wrote:the chance for life, is it reduced around smaller systems at all due to such things as close proximity to a star's radiation, or the generally smaller planets being able to hold onto liquid water or not, etc. Besides Earth being possibly more rare now, might "our" habitable zone actually be safer than zones closer to these smaller stars?
The problem is, with a sample of one, it's almost impossible to estimate the probability of life forming under different conditions, or even under identical conditions to ours.

People have all kinds of interesting ideas, but so far, no way to really put them to the test.
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Re: Planets Abound: Billions and Billions of Planets

Post by bystander » Fri Jan 04, 2013 8:36 pm

bystander wrote:
Billions and Billions of Planets
NASA | JPL-Caltech | 2013 Jan 03

Planets Abound
Caltech | 2013 Jan 03

Characterizing the Cool KOIs IV: Kepler-32 as a prototype for the formation of
compact planetary systems throughout the Galaxy
- Jonathan J. Swift et al

Planets Everywhere You Turn
Centauri Dreams | Paul Gilster | 2013 Jan 04

100 Billion Exoplanets Live in Our Galaxy
Discovery News | Irene Klotz | 2013 Jan 04
...
Interestingly, another team of astronomers last January came up with the same estimate using a different database and different technique. What spurred that team's work was an original estimate by Kepler scientists in 2010 that the Milky Way had at least 50 billion planets.

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=26451

Our Galaxy Is Crammed Full of Planets
Slate Blogs | Bad Astronomy | 2013 Jan 07
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Re: Kepler

Post by mjimih » Sat Jan 05, 2013 5:25 am

Chris Peterson wrote:
mjimih wrote:the chance for life, is it reduced around smaller systems at all due to such things as close proximity to a star's radiation, or the generally smaller planets being able to hold onto liquid water or not, etc. Besides Earth being possibly more rare now, might "our" habitable zone actually be safer than zones closer to these smaller stars?
The problem is, with a sample of one, it's almost impossible to estimate the probability of life forming under different conditions, or even under identical conditions to ours.

People have all kinds of interesting ideas, but so far, no way to really put them to the test.
was referring to a propensity towards favorable conditions within the zone that we can identify so far.
And now that we may know that most planets in habital zones, are more likely going to be in closer to a smaller star, Would being so much closer to a star, inside Mercury's orbit, necessarily make it harder to maintain a safe radiation free surface for animal life to exist, for instance?.

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Kepler Discovers 461 New Planet Candidates

Post by bystander » Mon Jan 07, 2013 7:32 pm

orin stepanek wrote:I've been hoping for some Kepler news releases; but the site seems to be quiet since the end of November! :?
Beyond wrote:They're probably just busy counting all the new planets they've found. :mrgreen:

Kepler Discovers 461 New Planet Candidates
NASA | JPL-Caltech | Kepler | 2013 Jan 07
NASA's Kepler mission Monday announced the discovery of 461 new planet candidates. Four of the potential new planets are less than twice the size of Earth and orbit in their sun's "habitable zone," the region in the planetary system where liquid water might exist on the surface of a planet.

Based on observations conducted from May 2009 to March 2011, the findings show a steady increase in the number of smaller-size planet candidates and the number of stars with more than one candidate.

"There is no better way to kick off the start of the Kepler extended mission than to discover more possible outposts on the frontier of potentially life-bearing worlds," said Christopher Burke, Kepler scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., who is leading the analysis.

Since the last Kepler catalog was released in February 2012, the number of candidates discovered in the Kepler data has increased by 20 percent and now totals 2,740 potential planets orbiting 2,036 stars. The most dramatic increases are seen in the number of Earth-size and super Earth-size candidates discovered, which grew by 43 and 21 percent respectively.

The new data increase the number of stars discovered to have more than one planet candidate from 365 to 467. Today, 43 percent of Kepler's planet candidates are observed to have neighbor planets.

"The large number of multi-candidate systems being found by Kepler implies that a substantial fraction of exoplanets reside in flat multi-planet systems," said Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "This is consistent with what we know about our own planetary neighborhood."

The Kepler space telescope identifies planet candidates by repeatedly measuring the change in brightness of more than 150,000 stars in search of planets that pass in front of, or "transit," their host star. At least three transits are required to verify a signal as a potential planet.

Scientists analyzed more than 13,000 transit-like signals to eliminate known spacecraft instrumentation and astrophysical false positives, phenomena that masquerade as planetary candidates, to identify the potential new planets.

Candidates require additional follow-up observations and analyses to be confirmed as planets. At the beginning of 2012, 33 candidates in the Kepler data had been confirmed as planets. Today, there are 105.

"The analysis of increasingly longer time periods of Kepler data uncovers smaller planets in longer period orbits-- orbital periods similar to Earth's," said Steve Howell, Kepler mission project scientist at Ames. "It is no longer a question of will we find a true Earth analogue, but a question of when."

The complete list of Kepler planet candidates is available in an interactive table at the NASA Exoplanet Archive. The archive is funded by NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program to collect and make public data to support the search for and characterization of exoplanets and their host stars.

NASA Exoplanet Archive

Earth-Sized Planets Are a Plentiful Bunch
Science NOW | Govert Schilling | 2013 Jan 07

Kepler Finds Hundreds of New Exoplanet Candidates
Universe Today | Jason Major | 2013 Jan 07
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Re: Kepler

Post by orin stepanek » Mon Jan 07, 2013 11:30 pm

Looks pretty promising that there are a lot of planets out there that could have liquid water! Sounds pretty probable that there is a lot of life out in the galaxy. I hope more updates are on the way! 8-)
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