Kepler News and Results

A starspot ?

The shape of the dip in the light curve caused by a star spot will be heavily dependent on the diameter of the star and the stellar rotation period(s). We can assume that the two stars are in synchronous rotation and thus should have a rotation period of four days. This means that any star spot that shows up should produce a two-day long dip in brightness, followed by a two-day lack of such a dip, since the star spot would be visible half the time. This is not consistent with a small, quick dip every two days.

Even if either of the stars are not in synchronous rotation, a star spot would still have to be detectable in the light curve half the time, instead of once, briefly, every two days.

Dyson Sphere Remnant!

Some ones got to suggest it.

Still trying to work out how to get that pattern... you might be able to do something with resonances. A Trojan configuration wouldn't work, because you'd get two transits between the primary and secondary stellar eclipses. (Besides such a configuration would be unstable)

I'm beginning to see how the planet-orbit diagram in the power point makes sense from a purely geometrical point of view, but only if the orbital period of the planet is just two or three times the binary orbital period of the stars, probably not stable.

What if the transit is caused by a very long-period companion to the system. The dips in brightness aren't corresponding to how often the planet passes in front of the star, but rather, how often one of the stars passes behind the planet. If so, this should cause the transit to shift positions slowly down the length of the light curve or disappear after a while.

We would have to be extremely lucky for that second scenario but it is a very nice idea. Another possibly unlikely idea is that the eclipsing binary system's light is blended with a fainter background eclipsing binary with shallow eclipses every two days or so. Still, having such an alignment of eclipsing binaries would defy odds...

That makes sense, exoplanet, probably a bit more realistic, too.

And more interesting too

The background eclipsing binary scenario would imply a very weird system, given the apparent simple period ratio between the shallow transit and the main eclipsing binary.

What would produce such a system? Would perhaps imply that the two are bound, i.e. a hierarchical quadruple system (star+star)+(star+planet), somehow the inner periods ended up "resonant"...

2009 September 4. Mission Manager Update

http://kepler.nasa.gov/about/manager.html

Note the following:

"Engineers have continued to make progress in determining the
root cause of the two safing events that Kepler experienced on June 15
and July 2. Radiation testing confirmed the susceptibility of a
circuit, in the spacecraft's RAD750 processor, to single-event-upsets,
as a credible root cause. The single-event-upset of the circuit would
cause the RAD750 to execute a power-on reset, causing the spacecraft to
enter a Safe mode. Mitigation actions are being considered for
implementation to minimize the impact of any future safing events."

Mission Managers Update September 22 2009

http://kepler.nasa.gov/about/manager.html

93 Gigabits of data downloaded!

Along with Quarterly roll the process took 41 hours.
The telescope is inoperative during this period.
Answers some previous questions.

Apparently some of the data may now be available to the public!!!

I thought there was a 1 year embargo on this stuff.

Can anyone get this info? I get a login box when I try the retrieval form.

Mission Managers Update October 14 2009

http://kepler.nasa.gov/about/manager.html

Very little new information.

The Safing event is not related to the RAD750 processor but
rather due to some low voltage power system. This means it can be
isolated and should not cause further problems.

Next data download October 17-18.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0910/20titanium/index.html#

Quote :

Western Titanium and four executives were indicted last December under eight counts of fraud involving aircraft or space vehicle parts and conspiracy to commit fraud, according to the local U.S. attorney's office.
The indictment alleges the company and its managers issued false certifications claiming the titanium met stringent requirements specified by the government and contractors.
The suspect titanium was traced to Air Force F-15 and F-22 fighter jets and the C-17 cargo plane, in addition to NASA's Kepler telescope launched in March.
NASA officials found the titanium on Kepler met performance specifications and allowed the mission to launch as scheduled.

Well, since we now know that some planets will be announced early next year, anyone want to guess how many?

Sirius_Alpha wrote:

Well, since we now know that some planets will be announced early next year, anyone want to guess how many?

http://nexsci.caltech.edu/missions/KeckSolicitation/proposal-current.shtml

Quote :

2009B W. Borucki NASA Ames Key Follow-up Observations of Kepler Targets x HIRESr

http://www2.keck.hawaii.edu/observing/schedule/index.php
Borucki users HIRES 29-31.07.2009, 01-09.09.2009, 3-5.10.2009, 28-29.10.2009 or approximately 17 observant nights (170 hours HIRES)

This will be a hot jupiters, neptunes in periods before one month.

1 RV-measurement HIRES for star V=12 mag 600 seconds to exposures or 10 minut.
Discovery hot jupiter users about 10 RV-measurements or 100 minut time Keck-HIRES.

My forecast - present more 50 new hot transit gas giants planets.

Interesting, does that calculation assume that every observed star hosts a transiting giant planet?

Personally, I expect just two or three, maybe five at the most.

Sirius_Alpha wrote:

Interesting, does that calculation assume that every observed star hosts a transiting giant planet?

Yes. False candidates must exclude on small telescope.

For instance

http://linmax.sao.arizona.edu/html/sched/2009c.60.html
2009.09
TRES: Latham (Kepler follow-up) 15 nights
2009.10
TRES: Latham (Kepler follow-up) 15 nights
2009.11
TRES: Latham (Kepler follow-up) 15 nights

http://linmax.sao.arizona.edu/html/sched/2009b.48.html
http://linmax.sao.arizona.edu/html/sched/2009c.48.html
all days in name Latham Transits

"TRES" is mentioned several times in those links. Is it the same TrES that we're all familiar with?

Sirius_Alpha wrote:

"TRES" is mentioned several times in those links. Is it the same TrES that we're all familiar with?

Not. TRES this is spectrograf - Tillinghast Reflection Echelle Spectrograph (TRES).

Several posts pretaining to a problem with the Kepler spacecraft and its effects on the mission have been split into a new discussion here.

http://archive.stsci.edu/mast_news.php?out=html&desc=t&id=342

Quote :

Kepler Dropped Targets now Public
11/04/09

Roughly 7,500 Kepler Light curve files are now available to the public for download. To see the available files, go to the Kepler Data Search form , enter " < 2010" in the box labelled "Release Date", and click the "Search" button.
Please note the Data Use Policy comments regarding the use and interpretation of the current Kepler data.

Unfortunately, public data (calibrating photometry for 10 days May 2009) there is no known transiting planets, or short period known variables.

Found only long period variable - U Lyr (Mira type)
http://simbad4.cfa.harvard.edu:8080/simbad/sim-id?Ident=%402925299&Name=V*%20U%20Lyr&submit=submit

http://kepler.nasa.gov/about/manager.html

Quote :

Kepler completed another science data download over October 18-19.

Quote :

It is expected that confirmation of a number of planets will be announced by NASA in conjunction with the January 2010 American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Washington DC.

Quote :

Systematic noise results from the imperfect nature of any measuring device. It represents the instrument’s “finger print” placed upon the measurement, and must be calibrated out of the data in post-processing on the ground. Because systematic noise depends on the specific characteristics of the instrument, the best calibration requires that the noise sources be characterized and modeled based on measurements made in space. The Kepler team has been developing the ground software to calibrate out the various systematic noise sources since launch, and this work will continue for a number of months. As each source of systematic noise is calibrated, fainter transit signals can be detected. Data collected from the spacecraft will be continually reprocessed as the ground software matures, revealing smaller and smaller planets. This is a normal process and has been part of the Kepler plan since before launch. Fortunately for Kepler, the worst sources of systematic noise affect only a small portion of the field of view, so the majority of the field of view will be calibrated earlier, enabling small planets to be detected sooner.

Quote :

While operations of the Kepler spacecraft continue, the Kepler Science Team is preparing for the January AAS meeting a number of papers and presentations on Kepler and its early results. Also in January, special issues of both Science Magazine and the Astrophysical Journal will publish 3 overview papers in the former and several papers discussing technical aspects of the Mission in the latter journal. As the AAS draws closer, the Kepler project is delighted to report that some of Kepler’s data is closer to being made public. Data collected by the Kepler Mission during commissioning, and during the first six weeks of the science operations, have now been processed and sent to the archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD. From there the data will be available to the Science Team members for their continued investigations. This early data will be released to the public in June 2010.
Note: MAST is already publicizing the release of the dropped target data and it is possible to download light curves (as of Nov 4).

other star from public data Kepler
http://simbad4.cfa.harvard.edu:8080/simbad/sim-id?Ident=%402925374&Name=BD%2b38%20%203590&submit=submit
not variable in Simbad



p-mode K-giant star?