Hawaii's Keck Telescope Performes Spectral Analysis of Kepler Habitable Zone Planets

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Planetary Science News

Credit: NASA/JPL/KECK 

Keck Observatory

August, 2018. Recently Hawaii's Keck Telescope Performed Spectral Analysis of Kepler Habitable Zone Planets. The results indicate the best possible scenario that scientists have been hoping for, the Keck Tea, has clearly identified many trace elements that support life on earth. The findings indicate that we live in a universe full of interesting new planetary systems. We find these systems to be elementally abundant with Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon, Iron and the footprints of Life.

Carbon and Oxygen were found to be enriched in stars with planetary systems. These exciting results indicate that many exotic worlds are formed in carbon rich environments. Most generally we find that the elemental abundances in planetary systems will generally align with that of their host stars. Data from the Kepler Space Observatory suggests that there may be more than two billion planets in our galaxy capable of supporting life. Possibly 10% - 20% of planets are potentially Earth-like. Given that the possibility of a planet being habitable is dependent upon the planet residing with-in the habitable zone of it's star and that the temperature and pressure conditions of the host star and planetary system will allow liquid water to exist. 

The spectral analysis results show a best case scenario that enthusiasts have always hoped for, along with recent results from the Kepler Mission we have learned that we live in a universe abundant with planetary systems alike to those in our own star system. Nature does throw a little diversity into the picture though, being that planetary and star systems are not all alike, many planets have been found commonly around binary and trinary star systems that's adds to the complex and diverse results that we will find!

New Generations of Planet Hunters!

April 18, 2018 SpaceX has successfully launched NASA’s new planet-hunting satellite named TESS on Wednesday night. This successful deployment has delighted scientists and space fans who hope the spacecraft will discover many new planets around new single star systems, as well as binary and trinary star systems. For a triple play SpaceX landed the first-stage booster successfully at sea, this was the space company’s 24th such recovery. TESS launched on the Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. TESS being an acronym for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, is a telescope and precision camera array that will hunt for new worlds around nearby stars. 

TESS will provide new targets to where future studies will analyze each new planetary system found for the ability of harboring life NASA says. Shortly after TESS launched into space it successfully deployed its solar arrays. It will spend the next 60 days getting to its proper orbit. NASA and SpaceX crews cheered each stage of the process and at one hour and nine minutes after launch, it was announced that the satellite was functioning correctly. NASA tweeted that the deployment happened right on schedule and the solar arrays will “give the spacecraft the power it needs to search for worlds beyond our solar system.”

With a gravitational assist from the moon, the spacecraft will soon settle into a 13.7-day orbit around Earth. This orbit is carefully planned to account for the moon’s gravity. The spacecraft will be looking for something known as a transit. A transit is when a planet passes in front of its star causing a periodic dip in the star’s brightness. NASA’s first history making transit survey telescope named Kepler used the same transit detection method. TESS is designed to concentrate on stars less than 300 light-years away in our own milky way galaxy, about 200,000 of them. Additionally, NASA says the satellite will begin its initial two year mission 60 days after launch, following successful testing of its instruments. Four wide-field cameras will give TESS a field-of-view that covers 85 percent of our entire sky. 

TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission that is led and operated by MIT and managed by Goddard. Orbital ATK manufactured and designed the new satellite. SpaceX’s Vice President for Mission Assurance Hans Koenigsmann said previously that the second stage rocket carrying TESS would not be recovered. He also stated there is something new happening with this mission, SpaceX plans to fire the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket and kick it out of orbit so that it doesn’t become space trash. This united effort will illuminate our view of local star and planetary systems as never before. 

Citizen Scientists are encourage to volunteer at planethunters.org to begin learning how to classify planetary systems.

Citizen Scientists Are Welcomed to Help Nasa and TES Classify New Planets!

NASA Kepler Research

Planet Hunter Express by JLC

Citizen scientists and amateur planet hunters are encouraged to aid NASA's search for new planetary systems and perhaps help us find life in other places in our universe. The Kepler Mission and Planethunters.org offers a first time opportunity in the history of mankind for citizen scientists and amateur astronomers to help discover new planets. Beginning in 2009, the first Kepler Mission has successfully identified thousands of planets in other star systems that include: giant gas planets, mini neptunes, water worlds and many rocky super earths.

These studies have made history and support the advancement in newly evolving planetary science fields. Nasa needs your help to classify the overwhelming amount of data received and people like you often find planets that technology used may sometimes overlook. We now have two sets of data available from the K1 & K2 Missions and citizen scientists are encouraged to work with NASA's brand new TESS data that is constantly downlinked to earth today.

PlanetHunters.org