Kepler News and Results

http://kepler.nasa.gov/
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http://kepler.nasa.gov/ed/lc/typesOfVariableStars.html

Just read the abstract for one of the presentations at AAS meetng in January 2010:

Quote :

However ground-based follow up observations confirm the discovery of
exoplanets with sizes ranging from 0.6 Rj to1.5Rj and orbital periods
ranging from 3 to 9 days

http://www.abstractsonline.com/plan/ViewAbstract.aspx?mID=2334&sKey=9418eda3-980f-4fc3-ad61-e116d598030a&cKey=211f7d3f-2939-4982-b9bf-512927a1bafb

Link seems broken. Gives "Error"

I haven't been able to view any abstracts from abstracts online for months now, when linked to them by the EPE. Seems it's the same here too. Edasich, what browser are you using? Firefox?

Nope, simply Internet Explorer.

AbstractsOnline seems to require you to go in through the main page for the talk, direct links do not work.

Remember that any discoveries are likely embargoed until the presentation is actually given.

http://kepler.nasa.gov/about/manager.html
2009 November 23. Mission Manager Update - Kepler experienced a safe mode event on November 18. A safe mode is a self-protective measure that the spacecraft takes when something unexpected occurs. During safe mode, the spacecraft points the solar panels directly at the sun and begins to slowly rotate about a sun-aligned axis. The spacecraft automatically powered off the photometer and one redundant subsystem as a safety precaution. Engineers immediately began telemetry analysis to determine spacecraft subsystem health, and root cause determination of what triggered the safe mode. This safe mode occurred when the team was preparing to download another month of scientific data from Kepler. The scientific data was not in danger and was downloaded successfully via the NASA Deep Space Network on November 19. Engineers verified nominal performance of all of Kepler’s systems and successfully recovered the vehicle from safe mode. Science data collection was resumed by the evening of November 20.
This was the third Safe mode Kepler has experienced since operations began on May 12, 2009. This Safing event occurred during a planned break in science data collection, causing a minimal delay in return to science operations. The Kepler engineers budget for the potential loss of up to 12 days of science per year from Safing events. While Kepler continues its next 30 days of science data collection, engineers will pour over data to determine the cause of the malfunction. The next download of science data is scheduled for mid-December 2009.

It isn't a discovery. Only technical news

Edasich wrote:

It isn't a discovery. Only technical news

Which is perfectly alright for this forum... Extrasolar News and Discoveries...

This excerpt from the abstract of Bill Borucki's talk at the next meeting of the AAS is interesting (as pointed out earlier by lodp).

Quote :

However ground-based follow up observations confirm the discovery of
exoplanets with sizes ranging from 0.6 Rj to1.5Rj and orbital periods
ranging from 3 to 9 days

The unusual thing is the that the radius of the planets they are presenting just stops at 0.6 Rj, rather short of say 0.40-0.45 typical of hot neptunes, which should also be readily seen in the data at the level of precision they are working. So, I wonder if they focused on these systems since confirmation would be easier or if there is some other reason why the hot-neptunes and super-earths that should out-number the hot jupiters are not mentioned.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/15604836/2-Science-Objectives-The-discovery-of-extra-solar-planets

Quote :

For example, this is a main concern for CoRoT exoplanet light curves showing that the majority of stars in the CoRoT field exhibit variability at a level near 1 mmag, i.e. higher than the Sun's variability (0.3 mmag at maximum activity; Debosscher et al. 2009, Aigrain et al. 2009). We know since activity monitoring studies at Mount Wilson 20 years ago that this is not the case for stars in the solar neighborhood: half of them present activity levels similar to the one of the Sun or smaller and close to 25% of them are very non-active. These fractions are also observed in the volume-limited subsample of the HARPS planet-search program. Part of the effect seen on CoRoT light curves could be attributed to some instrumental effect (e.g. hot pixels) but can also be related to the specific property of the field (younger stars, magnitude limited favoring thus earlier dwarfs). In the Kepler field, the very recent preliminary analysis of 1 month of observation shows that at least 25% of the stars are less active than the quiet Sun (Latham,Porto conf. 2009). This is very encouraging for programs aiming at the detection of very low-mass planets from the ground (radial velocities) or from space (transits).

Good news

On an article about the discovery of GJ 1214 b from Time, they add this tid-bit of info about Kepler.

Quote :

Separately, NASA's Kepler Mission will present the first results of its planet search at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington in January. "[The Kepler team] has already submitted 28 scientific papers based on 43 days of data or less," says MIT planet theorist Sara Seager. "It's going to be a big year for planets."

I wouldn't assume these papers are all about planets - Kepler also will be a valuable source of information on asteroseismology, binary star systems, etc.

My prediction:
10 papers about asteroseismology,
8 papers about variable stars,
7 papers about eclipsing binaries and
3 papers about...Hot Jupiters!

Among the abstracts AAS215 around 26 talk about Kepler.

However I repeat: 8 thread pages about no exoplanet detection.

Edasich wrote:

However I repeat: 8 thread pages about no exoplanet detection.

So?

As I pointed out earlier, forum name is Extrasolar News and Discoveries. It is not Extrasolar Planet Detections. Though maybe the thread could use a rename to "Kepler News".

(not going to do the rename myself - my moderator remit is limited to embargoes only and I have no desire to extend it)

Right. "Kepler News" would fit well. Accounting administrator's opinion, of course.

"Kepler results" would imply findings or detections of some kind.

Simply program informations are not results, but data. According to me...

Considering known frequency hot super-Earths- and Neptune-mass planets beside solar-type stars (around 50%), geometric probability of the transit in 10 percents and total number solar-type stars in catalogue Keplera possible calculate number of such finding - 150 000 * 0.5 * 0.1 = 10 000 transit hot super-Earths- and Neptune planets in contrast with 150 hot transit jupiters and 1500 not transit hot jupiter.

Here is else estimations in addition
http://archive.seti.org/pdfs/Werner.pdf

Quote :

Objective: Identify SuperEarths which transit nearby, bright stars
• Starts with the HARPS data base [K<7;now approaching 40 and growing] of solar type stars with radial velocity planets having minimum masses in range 2-20 Earth masses and probabilities ~2.5-to-15% of being in transiting orbits.
• Will observe best candidates with Spitzer hoping to detect 2 +/1 transits.

Signifies correlation for transit hot superEarths- and Neptune planets 1/25 - 1/80 against 1/1000 for transit hot jupiter.

Borislav wrote:

SQL-request KIC (Kepler Input Catalog)
http://whitedwarf.org/palebluedot/KIC.txt
total number of the stars - 145516

sorting on brightness scale mag
V=07.0 - 08.0 56
V=08.0 - 09.0 354
V=09.0 - 10.0 1004
V=10.0 - 11.0 2823
V=11.0 - 12.0 7189
V=12.0 - 13.0 17033
V=13.0 - 14.0 38257
V=14.0 - 15.0 78796

signifies the most bright star with discovered transit hot superEarths- and Neptune planet will be with V=7-8 against V=12 beside Corot-7 and V=9.5 HAT-P-11. This will repeatedly accelerate the confirm of such planets by method of the radial velocities.

A new Mission Manager Update.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/keplerm-20091223.html

In summary, the third quarterly roll was completed and data successfully downloaded. They've submitted about 30 papers. Some are about science, some are about technical aspects of the spacecraft.

Quote :

They've submitted about 30 papers.

My question is whether they will all be freely available on "arxiv.org" or another website. I really don't want to pay anything for the pleasure of reading them.

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/399921main_09-10_Borucki_Kepler_102909a.pdf

Quote :

•Batalha; Characteristics of the Kepler Target Stars
•Borucki; Kepler Planet Detection Mission: Introduction and First Results (plenary)
•Caldwell; Instrument Characterization & Performance in Kepler’s First Months
•Gautier; The Kepler Follow-Up Observation Program
•Gilliland. The Kepler Short Cadence Data and Applications for Asteroseismology
and Transit Light Curves
•Jenkins Preliminary Characteristics of Kepler Long Cadence Data For Detection
of Transiting Planets
•Koch; The Design and On-Orbit Performance of the Kepler Mission
•Kolenberg; First Results from Kepler for RR Lyrae Stars
•Latham; Spectroscopic Follow Up of Kepler Planet Candidates
•Marcy; Doppler Follow-up of Kepler Planets
•Monet; Kepler Astrometry
•Rowe; Kepler Observations of Transiting Hot Compact Objects
•Sasselov; Kepler Results for Previously Known Planets: the HAT-P-11Planet System
•Welsh; The Kepler Light Curve of HAT-P-7
•Bryson Characterization and Application of the Kepler Pixel Response Function
•Dotson; The Kepler Full Frame Images
•Fanelli; The Kepler Guest Observer Program
•Fraquelli; Using MAST to Access the Kepler Data Archive
•Haas; The Kepler Dropped Target Program
•Holman; A Search for Additional Planets in the TrES-2, HAT-7b, and HAT-P-11b Systems Via Transit Timing Variations
•Howell Kepler Observations of Three Pre-Launch Exo-Planet Candidates
•Mighell; A Calibration Study of Variable Stars in the Kepler Field
•Meibom; The Kepler Open Cluster Study
•Still; Cataclysmic variables within the Kepler Field
•Teske; Variability Trends in Kepler Data: A WWZ Transform Analysis
•Van Cleve; The Knowledge of Celestial Things: Using the Kepler Instrument and Data
Analysis Handbooks to Plan Observations and Believe the Results
•Verner; HST Imagery of the Kepler Field-of-view Acquired with WFPC2 and ACS

28 papers scheduled for 2 Kepler sessions at January AAS Meeting
Similar number of papers for special issues of Science & ApJL

it's seems that this paper not show any planet confirmation or any circumbinary planet that show on the first data of Kepler,i think that, this time not come great news,...

i think that we need wait for the next results of kepler

my hope is for new circumbinary planets detect by eclipse binary timing,that will be fascinate