----------------- NASA Press Releases http://www-b.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-036 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html ----------------- Related Nature journal articles and commentary http://www.nature.com/nature/current_issue.html Nature Vol. 470, Number 7332, dated Feb. 3, 2011 Lissauer, J. L. et al. Nature 470, 53-58 (2011) http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v470/n7332/full/nature09760.html ----------------- NASA YouTube Channel Broadcast of Kepler Press Conference http://www.youtube.com/user/NASAtelevision#p/a/u/0/zZHSptpDoLQ Notes on NASA JPL Press Conference By having a spaced-based wide-field telescope (hooked to a super-sensitive CCD array), Kepler generates a fire-hose of photometry data each day. 155,000 monitored stars continuously. 1235 Candidates 9 new confirmed planets in x? star systems Of the 1235 candidates planets - 662 Neptune size 165 Jupiter size 19 super-Jupiter size There are 520 current confirmed planets based on pre-launch ground-based observations. Ground based scopes classified 4 million stars in Kepler investigation field before Kepler launch so Kepler could concentrate on a subset of systems with a habitable zone (Kaf:???) Kepler candidate planets are smaller and have a longer period than compared to pre-launch ground based exo-planets. Kepler has observed planet transits down to the size of Mars. Of 1235 candidates maybe 54 candidates are in the habitable zone with temperatures between 0 and 200 F. Others have surface temperatures from greater than 200 deg F to 4000 deg F. (Most of the candidates have surface temperatures above 1000 deg F from visual estimate from press conference chart.) 170 star systems contain multiple planet candidates. These systems are particularly important because a new supplemental mathematical analysis technique can be used to characterize the mass of the planets in a multiple planet beyond the sensitivity of basic transit observations. There appears to be a reasoning error in the speaker extrapolating the number of candidates to the sky as a whole. Speaker implies that since Kepler observing field is one-four-hundredth of the celestial dome, a useable estimate of the number of candidate planets on the celestial dome is 1,250 times 400 or about 400,000. (Kaf: The Kepler observing field is just north of the galactic plane in Cygnus. The density of stars per degree of declines radically with increases in galactic latitude - as consistent with a flat disk shaped galaxy. So, a density taken on the disk cannot be extrapolated to the celestial sphere as a whole. A better estimate would be that a two-degree segment on the galactic disk has been examined, and therefore a better napkin-back estimate is "only" 180 x 1,250 or 225,000 candidates. Note Cygnus is near the spinward apex in the Orion-Cygnus spur.) Kepler 9 is the second confirmed system with multiple planets. Three stars in Kepler 3. Of the 170 candidate planets, six new planets have been confirmed in one system - Kepler 11. Kepler 11 is the most compact system ever discovered. Observed three planets transiting at once in Kepler 11. Entire system would fit inside the orbit of Venus. Estimated rate of candidate to confirmed is one-planet-per-five candidate stars (Kaf:???). (Kaf: If it is one-in-five, then this has big implication for f_sub(p) term of Drake's equation. f_sub(p) is the fraction of star systems that have planets.) To deal with the fire-house of Kepler data, Yale University teamed up with the Citizen's Science Alliance - the creators of the GalaxyZoo and MoonZoo projects, to create www.planethunters.org - a citizen eyeballing project to try an pick out planet transits from Kelper's overwhelming volume of data. (Kaf: Recall in GalaxyZoo, citizens were used to preliminarily classify the rought type of galaxy out of a bank of millions of images.) Unlike GalaxyZoo, citizens' participating in PlanetHunters just look at boring graphs and mark anomalous peaks and valleys. Even so, in the first few weeks 16,000 dedicated ordinary citizens have made 1.6 million ordinary classifications on Kepler light-curve graphs. (Kaf: Question - why can't this be done more effectively with mathematical analysis? Why is the superior visual pattern recognition of the human brain needed - as occurred in the GalaxyZoo and Mars feature classification projects? Main points of NASA 2-2-2011 Press Conference : Kepler team announce the confirmation of 9 new exo-planets with 6 planets in one star system. Kepler team expanded their announcement from last year that they identified about 700 potential candidate exoplanet systems requiring further analysis. This re-announcement raises the candidate stars requiring further investigation by about 500 to a total of 1,235. This public release of team data is in response to the impractically of the team of evaluating all the candidates. Therefore, they are releasing the research list in order to invite the professional and amateur community (and their resources) to complete the confirmation process. The promise of Kepler to discover candidate and confirmed lower and lower mass exoplanets. There is an opportunity for ordinary general public members to contribute in over-the-internet science projects to discover new exo-planets. There is a sense in Planethunter participants that they are contributing to a significant moment in human history. Unanswered questions: What portion the 184 Jovian size candidates can the advanced amateur community work on with their telescope gear? No doubt the professionals will have the inside track to evaluate these 184 Jovian or larger candidate systems, but what portion of those 168 can amateurs get to first? Most of the candidate systems are beyond the capability of amateur gear. Context: NASA is facing large budget cuts during the month that the president is formulating a new budget. The decadal National Science Academy plan was released last week which did not recommend first priority for the Terrestrial Planet Finder mission, effectively killing the project. - Kurt