Kepler Channel Noise Problem

Borislav wrote:

In principle if people with project Keplera can show the offensive messages from this forum possible their delete? I sorry that believed the journalist.

I'm not going to delete anything, but if the writers of the posts feel compelled to modify their posts to make it seem less accusatory, then that is encouraged.

n.b. Regrettably I won't be able to post any direct quotes. However I believe the summary I have given covers the points but bear in mind that I may have misinterpreted or introduced inaccuracies - these are my own fault and not due to the Kepler team.

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/091106-kepler-search-hampered-noisy-electronics.html

More info

Quote :

That does not mean, however, that Kepler
will be unable to discover Earth-size planets before 2011, Fanson
told Space News Nov. 5. Data obtained last summer when the Kepler
team was using the telescope to observe a previously identified gas giant
indicated that the instrument is sensitive enough to detect far smaller
objects, including planets the size of Earth. What is more, those measurements
were taken on the channel with the noisiest amplifier, Fanson
said.

Interesting. So the Hat-P-7 image shows the actual scatter effect of the amplifiers.

Quote :

“It does add difficulty and delays
the ability to find small planets in short-period orbits,” Borucki
said. “Future missions should look very carefully at the flaws in our
electronic design. Some of the amplifiers we use oscillate. Different
amplifiers would not do that.”

Hmm. This is unfortunate. If it is an actual design artifact, hopefully more amplifiers don't start acting up. I suspect they knew the whole lot could be a problem and then were relieved to find it only 3.

Quote :

“Ball offered to return some money to the government to pay
for software development to correct systemic noise sources because they are
very committed to the success of the mission,” Fanson
said.

Looks like Ball may have made an unfortunate design decision. Undoubtedly there is some embarrassment internally. The honesty is refreshing

Quote :

Systemic noise, however, which is created by the imperfect
nature of any measuring device, is greater than expected. “We won’t get that
fixed for a couple of years,” Borucki said. With
additional funding, the Kepler data could be cleaned
up more quickly, he added, but tight budgets make that prospect unlikely.

Quote :

“All the data we are collecting from Kepler
right now is good data,” Fanson said. “We need to
process that data on the ground. Each time we develop systemic noise correction
tools, we reprocess that data.”





It is also important to remember that the Kepler mission is not a race to identify new planets but
rather an effort to monitor more than 150,000 stars in a swath of the Milky Way
galaxy and measure the fraction of stars with Earth-like planets, Fanson said.

Technically true, but note that is only goal number 4.

Hopefully they will release the sensitivity of the data they are getting.

Design was to get 14 parts per million. Down to Mars size and smaller. This would have perhaps allowed the detection of the Moon, esp. considering how important the Moon is to the evolution of life on Earth.

Doesn't look like we will get all the way there. So our statistics for smaller rocky worlds maybe incomplete or unreliable.

Sigh.

You expected Kepler to give a complete census for terrestrial planets?

Sirius_Alpha wrote:

You expected Kepler to give a complete census for terrestrial planets?

At least statistically valid down to Mars.

Rather than just the odd Earth size planet.

I believe this was Goal 1 for the mission.

Concerning Russian article:
I believe our major Russian media nowadays tends to intensively broadcast of any American or Western failure, sometimes even making mountains out of hills.

Concerning the hypothesis about the team's fraud:
the hypothesis was fed by obscure and poor information. Given enough information, any public would have no reason to worry.