The Humans of Kepler: How NASA's Planet-Hunting Telescope Changed Astronomy (And Us) Forever

The Humans of Kepler: How NASA's Planet-Hunting Telescope Changed Astronomy (And Us) Forever

The Humans of Kepler: How NASA's Planet-Hunting Telescope Changed Astronomy (And Us) Forever





The Humans of Kepler: How NASA's Planet-Hunting Telescope Changed Astronomy (And Us) Forever


A decade ago, we thought that our solar system was special; Today, we know that it is not such a thing. That revolution is thanks to the work of NASA's Kepler space telescope, which has It officially arrived at the end of its mission..



	

	Since the launch of Kepler in 2009, scientists have detected a total of 2,681 confirmed planets orbiting other suns Within the data collected by the instrument. Another 2,899 potential Kepler planets are still being examined by scientists.





						


An artistic representation of Kepler-22b, one of the 2,681 confirmed exoplanet discoveries made to date in the instrument data.

            						    Credit: NASA / Ames / JPL-Caltech 


		Bill Borucki, who dreamed for the first time the Kepler mission and was his principal investigator until his retirement from NASA in 2015, knows many of those thousands of planets as individuals. Take as an example, Kepler-22b, which he calls one of the most interesting planets in the lot.

The[[Gallery: A world of Kepler planets]

		"It's a planet between the size of the Earth and neptune, unlike any planet in our solar system; "It is a planet that could well be an aquatic world, a world covered in an ocean, and it is in the habitable zone," Borucki said during a press conference held yesterday (October 30) to mark the end of work in space. of Kepler. "It could very well have an atmosphere on a water planet that could lead to life, making it an extremely interesting planet." It is one of my favorites."





						


Artistic representation of the Kepler-444 solar system, which consists of small rocky planets orbiting a relatively old star.

            						    Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / AMES / Birmingham Univ. 


		But not only is he excited about individual worlds: Kepler's mission has also identified many solar systems, where he has detected multiple planets orbiting a star. He's excited for what we might one day learn about Kepler-444 The system in particular, he said.

		"These are small, rocky planets, and they formed around a star that is about six thousand five hundred million years older than our star, than our own planetary system," said Borucki. "If life has been developing more than six thousand five hundred million years before the formation of the Earth, we may find some very interesting life forms while searching these first planets."

		But while Borucki is fascinated by planets that could potentially harbor life, he is also impressed by the diversity of the more than 600 solar systems that Kepler has studied. Take, for example, the existence of hot Jupiters, gaseous giants hidden so close to their stars that they orbit in a matter of days, completely unlike our own Jupiter walking around the Sun in the course of almost 12 Earth years.





						


Artistic representation of the long-lived Kepler space telescope and some of the planets that it discovered during its almost decade in space.

            						    Credit: NASA 


		Discoveries like these have forced scientists to stop assuming that our solar system is like those around us, added Padi Boyd, the project scientist for the mission of Kepler's successor, NASA. Exoplanet Satellite Survey. 

		"Kepler just broke that up by being the typical expectation," Boyd said during the press conference. "Putting our own solar system in that larger context, I think it's a really interesting picture of the galaxy, our solar system is not typical, maybe no solar system is typical, maybe they're all very different."

		That wealth of solar systems has also warmed the hearts of science fiction fans in the mission. For Kepler's project systems engineer at NASA Ames, Charlie Sobeck, the mission has changed the kind of universe he grew up with as he watched "Star Trek"Actually." I had no problem believing that there were planets out there of different types, so I had to wonder why it affected me so much when Kepler showed that there were many planets everywhere. "He said during the press conference.

		"There is a big difference between believing and knowing," Sobeck said. "It hit me like a hammer in the chest when Kepler showed us that really, there are planets out there of all kinds."



	Email Meghan Bartels in mbartels@space.com or follow it @meghanbartels. Follow us @Spacedotcom Y Facebook. Original article about Space.com.

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