The Kepler mission was brought to life, based on the basic human want to know if we really are the only form of life in the universe and if there are any other planets out there with the same conditions needed for life as on Earth. Kepler has been “specifically designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover hundreds of Earth-size and smaller planets in or near the habitable zone and determine the fraction of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy that might have such planets.”(“Mission Overview | NASA”)
Kepler is able to detect planets is by the transit method. This method has Kepler watch stars and see if there is any light coming from the star that is being blocked. If there is that light that got blocked might be from a planet, and to help determine if an object is a planet Kepler will have to watch the star for long periods of time to see if it does come back through to block light. This method however has several negatives to it. One such downfall to the transit method is that we have to be the same plane of view as the star that we are looking at, because if we aren’t then we would never see the planet blocking the light from the star. Another downfall to the transit method is that is it more favorable to bigger planets like hot Jupiters, this is because it would a lot easier to see bigger planets blocking light than it would be to see smaller planets blocking light. Even though there are some negatives to the transit method, it has found over four thousand six hundred ninety-six possible candidate planets and has been able to confirm one thousand thirty-one, which of twelve are confirm to be small habitable zone planets. Once one of these planets has been found, we can find the orbital size of the planet, by taking the period and the mass of the star. We can also find the size of the planet from the drop of light from the star as the planet passes by. Kepler is designed to look at only 115 square degrees. Another requirement of the field of view is to “have the largest possible number of stars. This leads to the selection of a region in the Cygnus and Lyra constellations of our Galaxy as shown.” (“Mission Overview | NASA”) The field of view has to be in an area where the sun would not affect the light that we see, as the only this mission works is by watching the drops in light from other stars as objects pass by them and having light from the sun could give wrong results or not let us see drops in light from other stars. The camera used on Kepler at the time was the largest camera that has been launched into space with a resolution of ninety-five million pixels. The Kepler mission was sent into space in March of 2009, with it first transmitting data back to Earth in June of 2009. …show more content…
In July of 2012, Kepler started to have problems with one of its reaction wheels, and ultimately leading to the failure of it. Reaction wheels are used “to accurately aim the telescope”. Thankfully Kepler only needs three reaction wheels for it to properly aim the telescope. Than in May of 2013, another reaction wheel failed, leading the scientists at NASA to put it into a safe mode that would allow it to keep it fuel consumption low, so that human communication to the spacecraft is still possible. The importance of Kepler for our understanding of the Solar System and the Universe in general, is that we are able to see how other solar systems are like. From that we can help to draw ideas on if our solar system is different or if we are just like every other solar system in the universe. What we have found so far, leads us to believe that our solar system is different from other solar systems with the information that we have at the moment. We have far more terrestrial planets than most solar systems do. This though could be due to one of the negatives of the transit method, where it is bias towards larger bigger planets as they are easier to detect. Another importance of Kepler
Kepler is able to detect planets is by the transit method. This method has Kepler watch stars and see if there is any light coming from the star that is being blocked. If there is that light that got blocked might be from a planet, and to help determine if an object is a planet Kepler will have to watch the star for long periods of time to see if it does come back through to block light. This method however has several negatives to it. One such downfall to the transit method is that we have to be the same plane of view as the star that we are looking at, because if we aren’t then we would never see the planet blocking the light from the star. Another downfall to the transit method is that is it more favorable to bigger planets like hot Jupiters, this is because it would a lot easier to see bigger planets blocking light than it would be to see smaller planets blocking light. Even though there are some negatives to the transit method, it has found over four thousand six hundred ninety-six possible candidate planets and has been able to confirm one thousand thirty-one, which of twelve are confirm to be small habitable zone planets. Once one of these planets has been found, we can find the orbital size of the planet, by taking the period and the mass of the star. We can also find the size of the planet from the drop of light from the star as the planet passes by. Kepler is designed to look at only 115 square degrees. Another requirement of the field of view is to “have the largest possible number of stars. This leads to the selection of a region in the Cygnus and Lyra constellations of our Galaxy as shown.” (“Mission Overview | NASA”) The field of view has to be in an area where the sun would not affect the light that we see, as the only this mission works is by watching the drops in light from other stars as objects pass by them and having light from the sun could give wrong results or not let us see drops in light from other stars. The camera used on Kepler at the time was the largest camera that has been launched into space with a resolution of ninety-five million pixels. The Kepler mission was sent into space in March of 2009, with it first transmitting data back to Earth in June of 2009. …show more content…
In July of 2012, Kepler started to have problems with one of its reaction wheels, and ultimately leading to the failure of it. Reaction wheels are used “to accurately aim the telescope”. Thankfully Kepler only needs three reaction wheels for it to properly aim the telescope. Than in May of 2013, another reaction wheel failed, leading the scientists at NASA to put it into a safe mode that would allow it to keep it fuel consumption low, so that human communication to the spacecraft is still possible. The importance of Kepler for our understanding of the Solar System and the Universe in general, is that we are able to see how other solar systems are like. From that we can help to draw ideas on if our solar system is different or if we are just like every other solar system in the universe. What we have found so far, leads us to believe that our solar system is different from other solar systems with the information that we have at the moment. We have far more terrestrial planets than most solar systems do. This though could be due to one of the negatives of the transit method, where it is bias towards larger bigger planets as they are easier to detect. Another importance of Kepler