NASA's Kepler Mission
Ever since the beginning of time mankind has gazed upon the stars and all the beauty of the heavens wondering if we are truly alone on this sanctuary we call earth.
For the first time we have the technology and resources to answer this question. NASA's Kepler Mission has illuminated our understanding that planetary and star systems exist commonly throughout the universe, allowing us to see that planets just like our own will likely come into light. Our understanding of the results will ultimately define our understandings of habitable zones, the many types of harmonic and chaotic planetary systems, universal elemental abundances, the many types of atmospheric compositions we will find and the most general future of new planetary prospects.
The Kepler Mission provided researchers with over 3 years of continuous light data for approximately 500,000 stars in neighboring Lyrae and Cygnus Star Constellations. Someday we may even understand that planets exist more commonly through out the universe than stars. Results from the Kepler Mission indicate that more massive planets are found around more massive stars. Information gathered allows analysis of moving dynamics of planets in star systems, atmospheric structures and characteristics, variety and classification of planetary profiles.
To date all known planets have been discovered from a variety of techniques including transit surveys, radial velocities, gravitational lenses, gravitational interactions, infrared heat signatures, and visual confirmations. From these we see giant gas planets, mini Neptune's, water worlds and many exotic earth like planets. We have also find many planets may exist in harmony around binary and trinary star systems. These discoveries are making advancements in ever evolving fields of planetary sciences, atmospheric physics and astrophysics. Planets revealing transit timing variations hint the presence of other planets in the system.
Binary and Trinary star systems tend to have large transit timing variations due to many gravitational interactions. These systems exhibit strong resonances through conservation of angular momentum which are the key foundations of system harmonics. Information can be extracted from known systems revealing the moving dynamics for systems, Keplerian motion, orbital timings, planet to planet gravitational interactions, the revelation of the different types of harmonic and chaotic planetary systems, light travel time and new advancements of star system spectral analysis.
Habitable Zones are the area around a star where liquid water may exist, defining whether or not a planet may be hospitable to life. The inner edge is in the hot zone, typically up to 340 Kelvins where water vapor dramatically increases and create strong greenhouse atmospheric conditions. At 373 Kelvins on models of earthlike planets it is predicted that oceans would evaporate entirely.
The opposite edge of the habitable zone is 273 Kelvins where water freezes or at about 1.7 AU from a sun like star like our own because planetary atmospheres become opaque to stellar radiation. In addition short period planets with non zero eccentricity hint the presence of other low mass planets. Internal planetary structures may be probed if 2 planets exist.
We will explore the results and current finding's of the Kepler Mission here. It is estimated that %30 of stars may harbor earthlike planets that our technology may not be easily able to detect, while sometimes we do still find larger earthlike planets. Our results also indicated that older red dwarf stars tend to be deficient of gas planets. Hot Jupiter's were missing from Kepler results possibly due to reflectivity. Hot Neptune's and super earths have been found frequently.
Confirmed Planets 4,197
Detected By Kepler 2,622
Kepler Candidates 2418
Detected By K2 409
K2 Candidates 889
TESS Confirmed 66
TESS Candidates 2120
Ice Giants 1,250
Gas Planets 1,001
Super Earths 776
Terrestrial 348
By Detection Method
Astrometry 1
Imaging 44
Radial Velocities 686
Transit 2960
Transit Timing Variations 15
Eclipsing Timing Variations 9
Microlensing 64
Pulsating Timing Variations 2
Orbital Brightness Modulations 6
By Kepler Light Curves 2622
Transiting 2983
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