4. The Moments Of
Discovery
After four-year primary mission (2009-2013) In
January 2015, the Kepler team, analyzing data
gathered by the Kepler spacecraft, announced its
1,000th verified extra solar planet (“exoplanet”)
discovery
including three more that are both less than two
Earth diameters in size, and orbit within the
“habitable zone” of their parent stars
bringing the current total of these to eight—(i.e.,
the regions where the temperature range could
allow for liquid water on planetary surfaces)—
5.
6. How Are the Discoveries Made?
.
• Kepler Team detects planets by
taking a photometric
measurement of the stars in its
field of view every 30 minutes.
• A planet transit will show as a
small periodic dip in the “light
curve” of a star over time.
• host star’s diameter and
temperature are known, then
from the simple dip in the the
light curve Kepler Team can
determine the planet’s diameter
and orbital period
• Kepler Team cannot
independently determine the
planet’s mass or composition,
nor its atmospheric composition
7. The Big Picture
.
Kepler’s 1,000 exoplanet
discoveries—and counting—have
demonstrated that planets are
everywhere, and that small
planets are more common than
large ones.
Prior to Kepler, the vast majority of known exoplanets were Neptune-size or
larger. This was a selection bias due to the difficulty of detecting smaller
exoplanets. Kepler can detect, and is detecting, smaller planets not possible
by other methods, and is increasing the odds of finding planets that resemble
Earth.An important goal in the search for exoplanets is to find that “other
Earth”—one of similar size.
8. What are the Implications?
• Has shown that small planets
are more plentiful than larger,
Jupiter-sized worlds, and are
abundant in our galaxy.
• Current models show, planets
with a diameter smaller than
roughly 1.5 times of Earth
• more likely to have rocky
surfaces that could support
liquid water and appropriate
conditions to foster life as we
know it.
• Earth-size planets are therefore
key to discovering life beyond
our solar system.
• Kepler finds more exoplanets,
that ultimate goal comes closer!
9. Kepler 452 System
size and scale of the Kepler-452 system compared
alongside the Kepler-186 system and the solar
system. Kepler-186
a miniature solar system that would fit entirely
inside the orbit of Mercury.
Kepler-186 is very small compared to that of
Kepler-452 or the sun because it is a much smaller,
cooler star.
The size and extent of the habitable zone of Kepler-
452 is nearly the same as that of the sun, but is
slightly bigger because Kepler-452 is somewhat
older, bigger and brighter.
10. The habitable zone of the orbit
of Kepler-452b is nearly the
same as that of the Earth at 1.05
AU. Kepler-452b orbits its star
once every 385 days
11. Exoplanets Plotted
figure plots exoplanet
discoveries on a graph.
showing the size (radius)
versus the orbital period.
Kepler transit discoveries
as yellow dots. The pink
dots represent transit
discoveries by other
means than Kepler.
light blue dots represent
discoveries using the
radial velocity method
1 10 100 1000 10000 100000
1
4
10
20
40
2015
OrbitalPeriod[days]
PlanetRadius[Re
] Earth
Neptune
Jupiter
2015
13. Planets in Habitable Zones
figure shows both currently confirmed
and candidate exoplanets orbiting in
the habitable zone of their respective
stars.
positions on the graph are determined
according to the surface temperature
of their parent star versus the energy
received by the planet.
The green bands represent the
habitable zone—the region in which
water on a rocky surface
graph shows Venus, Earth and Mars
for reference. Recently confirmed
planets are labeled
14. Time Duration
A year on the newly-
discovered planet - the time it
takes to orbit it’s star,Kepler
452- lasts for 385 days, only
20 days longer than a year
here on Earth.
That's much different to years
on other, closer planets to
Earth. A year on Venus,
sometimes the closest planet
to earth, lasts only 88 Earth-
days. A year on Neptune,
further out in our solar system,
is the equivalent of 185 Earth-
years.
16. Kepler 452b is possibly the
right temperature to allow
liquid water to exist on the
surface essential for
supporting life.
According to John Coughlin,
a researcher at the SETI
Institute in California, the
Kepler team is to find out
the make-up of the planet.
Due to its size and age, it's
likely that it is a rocky
planet, meaning it could
have a volcanic system
under its surface.
17. Living In Kepler
new planet is slightly larger
than Earth
estimated to have twice the
gravitational pull of our own
planet.
according to the scientists
on the Kepler team, that
doesn’t mean it couldn’t
support life.
Jon Jenkins said that
humans could "adapt" to the
gravity, possibly becoming
"more stocky over many
generations."
18. "People already adapt to
heavy weights - humans are
built to do this kind of thing.
The human body has an
amazing ability to repair
itself.
19. Plants could potentially thrive there
Kepler 452, is slightly
bigger than our own
Sun.
The added light and
heat energy that the
planet receives from
the star not only means
it is slightly warmer
than Earth, but could
also mean that plant
life could thrive there.
plant photosynthesis is what produces the air we breathe, means this
essential building block of life has a good chance of living on Kepler
452b.
Jon Jenkins told "The sunshine from Kepler's star is very similar to
sunshine from our own star, and plants could be able to
photosynthesize just the same.“
"It would feel a lot like home."
20. Pretty much impossible to get there
Kepler 452b is warm, possibly wet,
and might be able to host plant life
it's 1,400 light-years away.
A light-year is the distance that a
beam of light can travel in a year.
Light travels at over 670 million
miles per hour. Light from the Sun
takes around eight minutes to reach
Earth
naturally, a trip to Kepler 452b
would take an incredibly long time.
Nasa's New Horizon probe - the one that recently took the amazing
pictures of Pluto - left Earth's orbit faster than any other spacecraft before
it, at around 36,373 mp