Related topics: nasa · stars · planets

Astronomers detect a second planet orbiting two stars

Planets orbiting binary stars are in a tough situation: They have to contend with the gravitational pull of two separate stars. Planetary formation around a single star like our sun is relatively straightforward compared ...

The strange orbits of 'Tatooine' planetary disks

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have found striking orbital geometries in protoplanetary disks around binary stars. While disks orbiting the most compact binary star systems share ...

New exoplanet is smallest to be precisely measured

Earthlings have long daydreamed about faraway planets, but only recently have scientists been able to identify thousands of new exoplanets—and to learn more and more about what they look like.

The low density of some exoplanets is confirmed

The Kepler mission and its extension, called K2, discovered thousands of exoplanets. It detected them using the transit technique, measuring the dip in light intensity whenever an orbiting planet moved across the face of ...

Two new planets discovered using artificial intelligence

Astronomers at The University of Texas at Austin, in partnership with Google, have used artificial intelligence (AI) to uncover two more hidden planets in the Kepler space telescope archive. The technique shows promise for ...

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Kepler Mission

The Kepler Mission uses a NASA space telescope designed to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. Orbiting the sun for at least 3.5 years, Kepler will use a photometer developed by NASA to continuously monitor the brightness of over 100,000 stars in a fixed field of view. The data collected from these observations will be analyzed to detect periodic fluctuations that indicate the presence of transiting exoplanets. The mission is named in honor of German astronomer Johannes Kepler.

Kepler is a mission under NASA's Discovery Program of low-cost, focused science missions. NASA's Ames Research Center is the home organization of the science principal investigator and is responsible for the ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. Kepler mission development is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. is responsible for developing the Kepler flight system.

The Kepler Spacecraft was launched on March 6, 2009 at 22:49:57 UTC-5.

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