Kepler telescope confirmed the existence of more than 100 exoplanets – unocero (blog)

modern astronomy has had important achievements since space telescopes were launched. These have many advantages over their counterparts in Earth, where perhaps the most important feature is that they are not susceptible to light pollution due to the cities. That is why often the facilities for telescopes are built in areas far from civilization.

Now an international team of astronomers has discovered-and confirmed- a series of new worlds. The researchers were able to discover exoplanets combining data K2 mission with observations from telescopes on Earth, including M. Keck Observatory in Maunakea, the twin Gemini telescopes in Chile and Maunakea, automatic search of planets at the University of California and the large binocular telescope operated by the University of Arizona.

the team has confirmed more than 100 planets, including the first planetary system that compresses four potentially Earth-like planets. Interestingly, this finding was possible when the system Kepler broke trying to target a certain area of ​​space.

In its initial mission, Kepler analyzed a specific trajectory of the sky in the northern hemisphere, measuring frequency with which the planets of sizes and temperatures similar to Earth circling around a star like our sun. But when the system lost its ability to locate its original target, in 2013, the engineers created a second life for the telescope, which was a success perhaps unexpected.

the new mission, dubbed K2, gave him the ability to observe a number of independent targets fields in the ecliptic plane giving also more opportunities for observatories on Earth to help with the observations. In addition, K2 is an entirely community mission, where the objectives to study proposed by a scientific community. K2 now sees a large fraction of a series of small, cold, red, dwarf stars, which are much more similar to the Sun in the Milky Way.

“The original mission of Kepler observed a small region heaven where sought to make a demographic analysis of the different types of planets, said Ian Crossfield, a scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, who leads the effort.

“This approach effectively meant a couple of the brightest red dwarfs were included in this work. The K2 mission to increase the number of small, red star by a factor of 20, for an upcoming study, “he said.

One of the sets most interesting planets discovered in this study is a system four potentially rocky planets between 20 and 50 percent larger than Earth, orbiting a star about half the size and with less light than the sun. Their orbital periods ranging from five to 24 days and two of them experience levels comparable radiation with those seen on Earth.

“Because these small stars have much in common in the Milky Way, could be that life would more often on planets will orbit red stars cold, rather than necessarily think of stars like our Sun, “Crossfield said.

of course, the findings of these studies are not necessarily accurate as we would like them to be. These planets are far (many light years away) and just this limitation prevents us to have data on the possibility of life on these planets, a relentless pursuit because clearly it seems unlikely that the Earth is the only object in the space where there is life

References:. Phys.org