Kepler News and Results (Thread 2)

Now Kepler is rivalling SuperWASP with confirmed planetary systems count.

Quote :

Comments: Accepted to ApJS. 17 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables. KOI 869 is replaced with KOI 2038. Kepler numbers are assigned

So what happened to KOI-869?

Lazarus wrote:

Quote :

Comments: Accepted to ApJS. 17 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables. KOI 869 is replaced with KOI 2038. Kepler numbers are assigned

So what happened to KOI-869?

Independent confirmation and synonymy, I guess.

Confirmed planets : 150

http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/discoveries/

So far only a large-separation, imaged exoplanet has been detected around a white dwarfs (WD 0806-661 b) plus a controversial timing-detected Jovian planet at GD66 (... and I expect it to be confirmed sooner or later rather retracted). Most of stellar remnants have revealed "tricky" in exoplanet search, except few notable cases.

Good luck...

Why would you expect GD 66b to be confirmed? Last I heard, the different pulsation modes vary in antiphase, which is bad news for the planetary hypothesis.

Are the KOI-55 planets expected to survive the helium-burning lifetime of the sdB star? (The intense heating is rather discouraging for the planets retaining much in the way of volatiles by the time the star becomes a white dwarf.)

KOI-127 == Kepler-77.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.3891

Another brown dwarf in the KOI list:

SOPHIE velocimetry of Kepler transit candidates IX. KOI-415 b: a long-period, eccentric transiting brown dwarf to an evolved Sun
http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.0905

Transit Timing Variation of Near-Resonance Planetary Pairs. II. Confirmation of 30 planets in 15 Multiple Planet Systems
http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.2329

A Discovery of a Candidate Companion to a Transiting System KOI-94: A Direct Imaging Study for a Possibility of a False Positive
http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.2559

Looks like the evidence suggests all four planet candidates are real.

Sirius_Alpha wrote:

Transit Timing Variation of Near-Resonance Planetary Pairs. II. Confirmation of 30 planets in 15 Multiple Planet Systems
http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.2329

A Discovery of a Candidate Companion to a Transiting System KOI-94: A Direct Imaging Study for a Possibility of a False Positive
http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.2559

Looks like the evidence suggests all four planet candidates are real.

 
30 (+2) Kepler planets have been added to EPE. The most massive planet update in aeons...

The Kepler website has had a rather major overhaul. Seems also that the discoveries table has disappeared?

Influence of Stellar Multiplicity On Planet Formation. I. An Insight From $Kepler$ Multiple Planet Candidate Systems
http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.7097

Quote :

The planet occurrence rate for multiple stars is important in two aspects. First, almost half of stellar systems in the solar neighborhood are multiple systems. Second, the comparison of the planet occurrence rate for multiple stars to that for single stars sheds light on the influence of stellar multiplicity on planet formation and evolution. We develop a method of distinguishing planet occurrence rate for single and multiple stars. From a sample of 138 bright (K$_P$$<$13.5) $Kepler$ multi-planet candidate systems, we compare the stellar multiplicity rate of these planet host stars to that of field stars. Using dynamical stability analyses and archival Doppler measurements, we find that the stellar multiplicity rate of planet host stars is significantly lower than field stars for semi-major axes less than 10 AU, suggesting that planet formation and evolution are suppressed by the presence of a close-in companion star at these separations. The influence of stellar multiplicity at larger separations is uncertain because of search incompleteness due to a limited Doppler observation time baseline and a lack of high resolution imaging observation. We validate the planet nature for KOI 82.01, KOI 115.01, KOI 282.01 and KOI 1781.02. This sample of bright $Kepler$ multi-planet candidates with refined stellar and orbital parameters, planet confidence estimation, and nearby stellar companion identification offers a well-characterized sample for future theoretical and observational study.

Some correction of radii of stars. Kepler 36 for example have slightly different size especially c 8.26 earth radii??b even smaller?1.36?

Added to EPE:
 
http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/koi-82_b/
http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/koi-115_b/
http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/koi-282_b/
http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/koi-1781_b/
 
However there are two planets too much in the catalog, accounting Kap And b to be removed (as being no more a planet but a brown dwarf) and PH1 to be merged with KIC 4862625 b (and renamed as Kepler-64 too).

New entry at Kepler website (reloaded): http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/discoveries/

Kepler-86 (KOI-3663) b, which matches with PH-2 b...

And Kepler-77 alias KOI-127, still missing in the Kepler website:
http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/abs/2013/09/aa21901-13/aa21901-13.html
There is still Kepler-72 and 73 to find.

Is it just a glitch of my browser or so do you have a message like "Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available" when you access to Kepler website?

It is, sadly, not a glitch. The US government actually shut down overnight, because of partisan politics.

So the updates of mine and Stalker's are... the freshest.
 
Surfing around the net I reckon it'll be a matter of 4 weeks or so. Everything shall solve somehow.

But don't touch arXiv!!  

So far, Kepler Science Conference II is still planned to go ahead.

Hopefully it will, there seem to be some pretty interesting discoveries in the pipeline...

More with regards to politics and the Kepler Science Conference II

The Guardian: US scientists boycott Nasa conference over China ban

Federal laws have been put in place that make it illegal for NASA to host Chinese citizens. As KSC2 is on NASA property, this means that they are excluded by law from attending the conference.

Quote :

The law is part of a broad and aggressive move initiated by congressman Frank Wolf, chair of the House appropriations committee, which has jurisdiction over Nasa. It aims to restrict the foreign nationals' access to Nasa facilities, ostensibly to counter espionage.

The scientists are not happy (to say the least) about this and there seem to be quite a few people pulling out of the conference, including several of the big names in exoplanet research:

Quote :

Geoff Marcy, an astronomy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has been tipped to win a Nobel prize for his pioneering work on exoplanets, or planets outside the solar system, called the ban "completely shameful and unethical".

In an email sent to the conference organisers, Marcy said: "In good conscience, I cannot attend a meeting that discriminates in this way. The meeting is about planets located trillions of miles away, with no national security implications," he wrote.

"It is completely unethical for the United States of America to exclude certain countries from pure science research," Marcy told the Guardian. "It's an ethical breach that is unacceptable. You have to draw the line."

Boycotts don't work. Never have.

More fun with the NASA China ban:

BBC: China calls Nasa conference ban 'discriminatory'

NASAWatch: Frank Wolf Dumps on NASA For Doing What He Told Them To Do