Astronomy

NASA recently publish first images (or “first lights”, as astronomer says) taken from Kepler spacecraft. It is the mission specifically designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover hundreds of Earth-size and smaller planets in or near the habitable zone and determine the fraction of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy that might have such planets.

These pictures are taken just at the day after cover release. It shows a glittering array of millions of stars stretching across the field of view. Also in the field are star clusters, background galaxies beyond the Milky Way and three stars that are known to have “hot Jupiters” orbiting them. Kepler will observe these stars for an early confirmation of the planet detection capability of the analysis software to be used on all of Kepler’s target stars.

Analysis of the images taken over the past several days shows that the telescope is well within the focus requirements levied on the instrument. The data were taken under stable temperature conditions and with the spacecraft in the highest pointing stability mode, called fine point. Engineers are now working with the science team to determine whether optimizing the focus further would provide a significant improvement in science return. If so, the 1.4-meter (55-inch) primary mirror assembly will be adjusted to fine-tune the alignment.

Launched on March 6, 2009, the scientific goal of the Kepler Mission is to explore the structure and diversity of planetary systems, with a special emphasis on the detection of Earth-size planets. It will survey the extended solar neighborhood to detect and characterize hundreds of terrestrial and larger planets in or near the “habitable zone,” defined by scientists as the distance from a star where liquid water can exist on a planet’s surface. The results will yield a broad understanding of planetary formation, the frequency of formation, the structure of individual planetary systems, and the generic characteristics of stars with terrestrial planets.

Some of the first images from Kepler can be found here.

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