NASA's Kepler mission successfully launched into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II at 10:49 p.m. EST, Friday (0349 March 7 GMT).
The $600 million spacecraft is designed to find the first Earth-size planets orbiting stars at distances where water could pool on the planet's surface. Liquid water is believed to be essential for the formation of life.
Named after the 17th century German scientist Johannes Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion, NASA's Kepler spacecraft will use those laws to seek out Earth-like worlds around distant stars.
The spacecraft will point its unblinking eye at a patch of sky near the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, where it will scan some 100,000 stars for the telltale dip in brightness that signals a planet crossing in front of its parent star as seen from Earth. The tiny "wink" in light that Kepler is designed to measure with its 95 million-pixel camera is comparable to a person trying to watch a flea cross a car's headlight from miles away, NASA officials have said.
Named after the 17th century German scientist Johannes Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion, NASA's Kepler spacecraft will use those laws to seek out Earth-like worlds around distant stars.
The spacecraft will point its unblinking eye at a patch of sky near the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, where it will scan some 100,000 stars for the telltale dip in brightness that signals a planet crossing in front of its parent star as seen from Earth. The tiny "wink" in light that Kepler is designed to measure with its 95 million-pixel camera is comparable to a person trying to watch a flea cross a car's headlight from miles away, NASA officials have said.
Engineers acquired a signal from Kepler at 12:11 a.m. Saturday, after it separated from its spent third-stage rocket and entered its final sun-centered orbit, trailing 950 miles behind Earth. The spacecraft is generating its own power from its solar panels.
"Kepler now has the perfect place to watch more than 100,000 stars for signs of planets," said William Borucki, the mission's science principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. Borucki has worked on the mission for 17 years. "Everyone is very excited as our dream becomes a reality. We are on the verge of learning if other Earths are ubiquitous in the galaxy."
Engineers have begun to check Kepler to ensure it is working properly, a process called "commissioning" that will take about 60 days. In about a month or less, NASA will send up commands for Kepler to eject its dust cover and make its first measurements. After another month of calibrating Kepler's single instrument, a wide-field charge-couple device camera, the telescope will begin to search for planets.
The first planets to roll out on the Kepler "assembly line" are expected to be the portly "hot Jupiters" -- gas giants that circle close and fast around their stars. NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes will be able to follow up with these planets and learn more about their atmospheres.
Neptune-size planets will most likely be found next, followed by rocky ones as small as Earth. The true Earth analogs -- Earth-sized planets orbiting stars like our sun at distances where surface water, and possibly life, could exist -- would take at least three years to discover and confirm. Ground-based telescopes also will contribute to the mission by verifying some of
the finds.
In the end, Kepler will give us our first look at the frequency of Earth-size planets in our Milky Way galaxy, as well as the frequency of Earth-size planets that could theoretically be habitable.
"Even if we find no planets like Earth, that by itself would be profound. It would indicate that we are probably alone in the galaxy," said Borucki.
As the mission progresses, Kepler will drift farther and farther behind Earth in its orbit around the sun. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which was launched into the same orbit more than five
years ago, is now more than 62 million miles behind Earth.
For more information about the Kepler mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/kepler
the finds.
In the end, Kepler will give us our first look at the frequency of Earth-size planets in our Milky Way galaxy, as well as the frequency of Earth-size planets that could theoretically be habitable.
"Even if we find no planets like Earth, that by itself would be profound. It would indicate that we are probably alone in the galaxy," said Borucki.
As the mission progresses, Kepler will drift farther and farther behind Earth in its orbit around the sun. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which was launched into the same orbit more than five
years ago, is now more than 62 million miles behind Earth.
For more information about the Kepler mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/kepler
No comments:
Post a Comment