All bout Kepler telescope Kepler was developed by NASA’s scientist William J. Borucki, who had worked before on science instruments for the Apollo program. Borucki began endorsing the mission of searching for exoplanets by monitoring for transits — when a planet passes in front of its star when viewed from the Earth. Getting rejected by NASA four times, Borucki was losing hope as his project didn’t meet the requirements demonstrated by NASA, until 2001 when the mission was approved.
Borucki explained, “Kepler looks at over 170,000 stars simultaneously, looking for planets that cross their star by blocking some light. By the blocking of that light, it can tell how big the planet is compared to the star, and when it repeats it tells the orbital period. From Kepler’s third law we can deduce how far the planet is from the star. And with all these properties of the star, we can tell how hot that planet might be.”
The Kepler i.e., accomplished by surveying a large sample of stars to objective is to explore the configuration and assortment of celestial bodies. This is
- Determine the percentage of terrestrial and larger planets that are in or near the habitable zone of a wide variety of stars
- Determine the distribution of sizes and shapes of the orbits of these planets
- Estimating the number of planets in multiple star systems
- Determine the variation of orbit sizes and planet reflectiveness, sizes, masses and densities of short-period giant planets
- Specify other members of each discovered planetary system using advanced techniques
- Determine the properties of those stars that harbour planetary systems.
Kepler-186f is an exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf Kepler-186, about 500 light-years from the Earth. It is the first planet with a radius similar to Earth’s to be discovered with the habitable zone of another star. Along four more planets orbiting much closer to the star have also been discovered (ridiculously massive than Earth). Kepler-186f is the first validated Earth-size planet to orbit a distant star in the habitable zone—a range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the planet’s surface. The discovery of Kepler-186f substantiates that Earth-size planets prevail in the habitable zones of other stars.
Its size is less than ten percent larger than Earth, although its mass, composition, and density are not known. Prior research suggests that a planet of the size of Kepler-186f is apt to be rocky. Before this discovery, the “record holder” for the most “Earth-like” planet took off to Kepler-62f, as it is 40 percent larger than the size of Earth and orbits in its star’s habitable zone. But that would mean that it has more gravity than Earth. Kepler-186f receives one-third the energy that Earth does from the sun as its revolution period is 130 days, placing it near the outer edge of the habitable zone. Even at noon, the sun would appear as bright as our sun is about an hour prior to sunset on Earth.
Kepler-186f resides in the Kepler-186 system about 500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. It’s also known that the system is also home to four inner planets lined up in orbit around a host star that is half the size and mass of the sun. The concept of Kepler-186f is developed by the collaboration of scientists and artists imagining the appearance of these distant worlds.
Kepler-452b is a super-Earth exoplanet orbiting within the inner edge of the habitable zone of the Sun-like star Kepler-452 and is the only planet in the system discovered by Kepler. It is located about 1,402 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus. This discovery and the introduction of 11 other new small habitable zone candidate planets mark another milestone in the journey of finding another “Earth.”
It is the smallest planet discovered that is orbiting in the habitable zone of a G2-type star, similar to our sun. With the confirmation of Kepler-452b scientists have also confirmed 1,030 planets.
Kepler-452b is 60 percent larger in diameter than Earth and is considered a super-Earth-size planet. While its mass and composition are not yet determined, previous research suggests that planets the size of Kepler-452b have a good chance of being rocky.
Its 385-day orbit is only 5 percent longer as the planet is 5 percent farther from its parent star Kepler-452 than Earth is from the Sun. Kepler-452 is 6 billion years old, which makes it 1.5 billion years older than our sun, has the same temperature with 20 percent more brightness.
Scientists think of it as an older, bigger cousin to Earth, providing an opportunity to understand and reflect upon Earth’s evolving environment.
To help confirm the finding and better determine the properties of the Kepler-452 system, the team conducted ground-based observations at the University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory, the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins, Arizona, and the W. M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. These measurements were key for the researchers to confirm the planetary nature of Kepler-452b, to refine the size and brightness of its host star, and to better pin down the size of the planet and its orbit.
The Kepler-452 system is located 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus.
Furthermore, the Kepler team has confirmed more number of exoplanets by 521 from their analysis of observations conducted between May 2009 and May 2013, raising the number of planet candidates detected by the Kepler mission to 4,696. It requires follow-up observations and analysis to verify they are actual planets and is a lengthy process.
The diameters of Twelve of the new planets lie between one to two times that of Earth while orbiting in their star’s habitable zone. Of these, nine orbit stars are similar to our sun in size and temperature.
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