The Kepler space telescope is a retired space telescope launched by NASA to discover Earth-size planets orbiting other stars. During its over nine and a half years of service, Kepler observed 530,506 stars and detected 2,662 planets. Wikipedia Contributors. The three dips occur about 2 days apart at days 1.2, 3.4 and 5.6. This website contains advanced information for those who want to go beyond what is required for a basic project. To start learning how to manipulate the data, check out Andrew Vanderburg's Transit Light Curve Tutorial. Make a Hygrometer to Measure Humidity - STEM activity. It was... New mission.

Its telescope has a 115 deg (about 12-degree diameter) field of view(FOV), roughly equivalent to the size of one's fist held at arm's length. Keplerian telescope, instrument for viewing distant objects, the basis for the modern refractive telescope, named after the great German astronomer Johannes Kepler. Retrieved December 16, 2019, from. NASA.gov brings you the latest images, videos and news from America's space agency. Kepler's data is available free online, and you can use it to identify stars with exoplanets and calculate the basic parameters for the exoplanets (orbital characteristics, size). (2019, October, 24). The diameter of the telescope’s mirror was 4 feet, 7 inches (1.4 meters), one of the largest mirrors beyond Earth orbit. Planets detected by Kepler will have names that begin with "Kepler" or "K2.". The relative brightness of stars are recorded by the telescope, and 3 evenly spaced dips in the graph signify when an exoplanet is blocking light from the star. Copyright © 2002-2020 Science Buddies. What is your enthusiasm for science after doing your project?

Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched on March 7, 2009, into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit. When printing this document, you may NOT modify it in any way. Using data from the Kepler mission and the extended K2 mission, scientists have identified more than 2,800 candidate exoplanets and have confirmed more than 2,600 of these as bona fide planets. After nine years in deep space collecting data that revealed our night sky to be filled with billions of hidden planets – more planets even than stars – NASA’s Kepler space telescope was retired. NASA. Compared to a typical science class, please tell us how much you learned doing this project. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST). We use cookies and those of third party providers to deliver the best possible web experience and to compile statistics. These data are transmitted to Earth, then analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by exoplanets that cross in front of their host star.
Designed to survey a portion of Earth's region of the Milky Way to discover Earth-size exoplanets in or near habitable zones and estimate how many of the billions of stars in the Milky Way have such planets, Kepler's sole scientific instrument is a photometer that continually monitored the brightness of approximately 150,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view. [Wikipedia].

Field flattener lenses on each module map the spherical telescope image surface onto the flat CCD chips, and define the overall wavelength bandpass.

Its eyepiece, or ocular, is a convex (positive, or convergent) lens placed in back of the focus, the point at which the parallel light rays converge; and the instrument produces an inverted (“real”) image that can be projected or made visible. Reproduction of material from this website without written permission is strictly prohibited. Kepler and K2 Science Center.

"Using Kepler Space Telescope Data to Identify an Exoplanet.".

(2019, December 8). The Keplerian Telescope - Johannes Kepler Inventor Johannes Kepler (born on December 27 1571, died on November 15 1630) is today remembered as one of the most famous and influential mathematicians and astronomers of European Renaissance. You can find this page online at: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Exoplanets_p002/exoplanets/kepler-data-exoplanet. You’ll find a link to “I Did This Project” on every project on the Science Buddies website so don’t forget to share your story! (2020, April 1). This science project requires a computer with internet access. The primary instrument aboard Kepler is the focal plane array consisting of 21 science and 4 Fine Guidance Sensor CCD modules. Kepler's first five planetary discoveries, named Kepler-4b, -5b, -6b, -7b … January 4, 2010: First planets. Only planets whose orbits are seen edge-on from Earth can be detected. Hess, K. Get the latest updates on NASA missions, watch NASA TV live, and learn about our quest to reveal the unknown and benefit all humankind. Kepler was a space telescope designed to survey a portion of the Milky Way galaxy in search of exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system.
Kepler was a space telescope designed to survey a portion of the Milky Way galaxy in search of exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system. (n.d.).

All rights reserved. https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~avanderb/tutorial/tutorial.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_exoplanets, Above Average (this science project is for someone who enjoys setting their own objectives, working with large tables full of numbers, figuring out how to make complex software work properly, and has the persistence to overcome challenges). The principal investigator was William J. Borucki. Kepler Space Telescope: The Original Exoplanet Hunter Primary mission. The telescope has a mass of 1,039 kilograms (2,291 lb) and contains a Schmidt camera with a 0.95-meter (37.4 in) front corrector plate (lens) feeding a 1.4-meter (55 in) primary mirror—at the time of its launch this was the largest mirror on any telescope outside Earth orbit, though the Herschel Space Observatory took this title a few months later. You may print and distribute up to 200 copies of this document annually, at no charge, for personal and classroom educational use. Come back and tell us about your project using the “I Did This Project” link for the project you choose. Kepler leaves a legacy of more than 2,600 planet discoveries from outside our solar system, many of which could be promising places for life. Try one of our science activities for quick, anytime science explorations. Please log in (or create a free account) to let us know how things went. For any other use, please contact Science Buddies. Hess, Kenneth L.. The perfect thing to liven up a rainy day, school vacation, or moment of boredom. This tutorial is key to this project, describing how to obtain and interpret a Kepler transit light curve. An example line graph of relative brightness over time recorded by the Kepler space telescope. Overall, how would you rate the quality of this project? The $600-million Kepler was launched in 2009 with the expectation that it would last a year. Of this, 105 deg is of science quali… Because Johannes Kepler lived during the same time period when Dutch lens-maker Hans Lippershey and Galileo Galilei, he received the news about their inventions very quickly, which enabled him to start expanding his scientific experiments with both traditional Galilean telescope and telescopes that he made by his own hands. Kepler was designed to monitor about 100,000 main-sequence stars over a period of three-and-a-half years. In this list of exoplanets, find which Kepler targets have exoplanets here. Are you planning to do a project from Science Buddies? Please enter a search term in the text box. Using data from the Kepler mission and the extended K2 mission, scientists have identified more than 2,800 candidate exoplanets and have confirmed more than 2,600 of these as bona fide planets. Retrieved December 16, 2019, from. The Kepler spacecraft hosts 0.95-m aperture Schmidt telescope.