1. Kepler Space Telescope
Tetyana Dyachyshyn
Observational Astronomy
Professor Jennifer West
University of MAnitoba

2. Outline Design and Physical Specifications:
Physical Type; Aperture; Instruments and Detectors; Resolution and Field of View
Wavelengths; Images/Diagrams; Date Built
History and Purpose:
Location; Mission; Time for Use; Images/Data; Targets and Projects; Significant Discoveries – Kepler 452b & Kepler 10c
References

3. Design and Physical Specifications: Physical Type
The Kepler photometer is a simple single purpose instrument.
Schmidt telescope design;
Mass: 1,039 kilograms (2,291 lb);
Primary mirror: 1.4 meter diameter (55 in); Detectors: 95 mega pixels (21 modules each with two x1024 pixel CCDs); Dynamic range: 9th to 16th magnitude stars; Fine guidance sensors: 42 CCDs located on science focal plane; Science data storage: >60 days.
NASA Ames Research Centre About the Kepler Mission
Credit: NASA

4. Design and Physical Specifications: Instruments and Detectors
0.95-meter aperture (diameter) telescope called a photometer or light meter.
The diameter of the telescope needs to be large.
WHY?
To reduce the noise from photon counting statistics  can measure the small change in brightness of an Earth-like transit. 1
NASA Ames Research Centre About the Kepler Mission
NASA

5. Design and Physical Specifications Resolution and Field of View
FOV: 105 square degrees (about 12 degree diameter) which is comparable to the area of your hand held at arm's length.
The fields of view of most telescopes are less than one square degree. Kepler needs the large field of view in order to observe the large number of stars. It stares at the same star field for the entire mission.
NASA Ames Research Centre About the Kepler Mission
Credit: Erik Petigura, UC Berkeley

6. Design and Physical Specifications Field of View Comparison
Kepler '​s 105-deg2 field of view gives it a much higher probability of detecting Earth-like planets than the Hubble Space Telescope, which has a field of view of only 10 sq. arc-minutes.
Kepler: detecting planetary transits
Hubble Space Telescope: addressing a wide range of scientific questions;
rarely looks continuously at just one starfield.
NASA Ames Research Centre About the Kepler Mission
Credit: NASA

7. Design and Physical Specifications: Wavelengths
Bandpass: nm FWHM
NASA Ames Research Centre About the Kepler Mission
Credit: NASA

8. History and Purpose: Images/Diagrams
The photometer points to a field in the northern constellations of Cygnus, Lyra and Draco, which is well out of the ecliptic plane, so that sunlight never enters the photometer as the spacecraft orbits.
The ecliptic plane is also the direction of the Solar System's motion around the center of the galaxy. Thus, the stars which Kepler observes are roughly the same distance from the galactic center as the Solar System, and also close to the galactic plane.
NASA Ames Research Centre About the Kepler Mission
The figure shows what we believe to be the local structure of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. The stars sampled are similar to the immediate solar neighborhood. Young stellar clusters, ionized hydrogen (HII) regions and the neutral hydrogen (HI) distribution define the arms of the Galaxy.
Credit: NASA

9. History and Purpose: Date Built
NASA's Kepler spacecraft launched on March 6, from Launch Complex 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Launch occurred at 7:49 p.m. PST.
Kepler and K2: Liftoff of the Kepler spacecraft. NASA. Retrieved from
Credit: NASA

10. History and Purpose: Location
In Space!
The observatory's an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit with a period of days allows it to watch the same stars constantly throughout its mission, something observatories such as NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes cannot do.
Kepler spent a little over four years monitoring more than 150,000 stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region with continuous 30-min or 1-min sampling.
NASA Kepler and Kepler 2 Spacecraft and Instrument
Credit: NASA

11. History and Purpose: Mission
Determine the abundance of terrestrial and larger planets in or near the habitable zone of a wide variety of stars;
Determine the distribution of sizes and shapes of the orbits of these planets;
Estimate how many planets there are in multiple-star systems;
Determine the variety of orbit sizes and planet reflectivities, sizes, masses and densities of
short-period giant planets; and
Determine the properties of those stars that harbor planetary systems.
NASA Ames Research Centre About the Kepler Mission
Credit: NASA

12. History and Purpose: Time for Use
Supporting research in science and technology is an important part of NASA's overall mission. NASA solicits this research through the release of various research announcements in a wide range of science and technology disciplines.
To submit a research proposal to NASA, individuals and the organizations with which they are affiliated must be registered in Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRES). Organizations are required to have a valid registration with the System for Award Management (SAM) before they can register in NSPIRES.
NASA uses a peer review process to evaluate and select research proposals submitted in response to these research announcements.
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. Discovery Program: Proposing a Mission
Credit: NASA

13. Research and Results: Images/Data
Phys.org Astronomers answer key question: How common are habitable planets?
NASA Kepler and K2 Mission Objectives
Analysis of four years of precision measurements from Kepler shows that 22±8% of Sun-like stars may have Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone.
Credit: Erik Petigura, UC Berkeley Credit: NASA

14. Research and Results: Targets and Projects
The primary science objective of the Kepler mission:
Exoplanet detection with an emphasis on terrestrial (R < 2.5 REarth) planets located within the habitable zones of Sun-like stars.
Kepler has discovered thousands of transiting exoplanets and revealed that small planets are abundant in the Galaxy.
NASA Kepler and K Mission Objectives.
Credit: NASA

15. Research and Results: Targets and Projects
In the process it is capturing large quantities of data on the target stars which is used not only to search for planets but also to study stars in general.
The results from NASA's Kepler spacecraft provide us with new information on a number of specific phenomena related to our fundamental knowledge of stars, their internal properties and evolution in time.
Space Fellowship NASA's Kepler Spacecraft Takes the Pulse of Distant Stars
Credit: NASA

16. Research and Results: Expected Results
From transits of terrestrial planets in one year orbits:
About 50 planets if most are the same size as Earth (R~1.0 Re) and none larger,
About 185 planets if most have a size of R~1.3 Re,
About 12% with two or more planets per system.
From transits of giant planets:
About 135 inner-orbit planet detections,
Densities for 35 inner-orbit planets, and
About 30 outer-orbit planet detections.
NASA Ames Research Centre About the Kepler Mission

17. Research and Results: Significant Discoveries
Kepler mission:
Candidate exoplanets: 4706
Confirmed exoplanets: 1039
Confirmed exoplanets less than twice
Earth-size in the habitable zone: 12
K2 mission:
Confirmed exoplanets: 33
NASA How many exoplanets has Kepler discovered?
NASA Exoplanet Archive
Creidt: NASA Credit: NASA Exoplanet Archive

18. Credit: NASA Ames/W. Stenzel
NASA Kepler and K2
Credit: NASA Ames/W. Stenzel

19. Credit: Discovery NASA. 2015. Kepler and K2 Image Gallery
Credit: Discovery

20. Research and Results: Significant Discoveries – Kepler 452b
The most similar to the Earth-sun system found yet.
The right temperature within the habitable zone.
About one-and-a-half times the diameter of Earth.
Circling a star very much like our own Sun.
NASA Kepler and K2 Image Gallery
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth
NASA Finding Another Earth
Credit: NASA

21. Research and Results: Significant Discoveries – Kepler 452b
Might be small and cool enough to host liquid water on their surface  might be hospitable to life.
However, astronomers do not know what this planet is made of. It could be rock but it could be a small gassy ball or something more exotic.
BBC 'Earth 2.0' found in Nasa Kepler telescope haul
Credit: BBC

22. Research and Results: Significant Discoveries – Kepler 452b
Kepler-452b is 1,400 light years from Earth - and each light year is 5.88 trillion miles - which means it would take the best part of a millenium-and-a-half to reach it if a spacecraft could travel at the speed of light.
Based on an Earth-like density, Kepler-452b would be five times more massive than our planet. This would correspond to a stronger gravitational pull, capable of drawing in a thick atmosphere to create a potential runaway greenhouse effect, which means that the planet’s temperature continues to climb.
Jenkins J M, Twicken J D, Batalha N M, Caldwell D A, Cochran W D, Endl M, et al Discovery and Validation of Kepler-452b: A 1.6 – R⊕ Super Earth Exoplanet in the Habitable Zone of a G2 Star. arXiv
Credit: arXiv

23. Credit: NASA NASA. 2015. Kepler and K2 Image Gallery
Credit: NASA

24. Research and Results: Significant Discoveries – Kepler 10c
Finding Kepler-10c tells us that rocky planets could form much earlier than we thought.
Express and Star New mega-Earth discovery
Exoplanet.eu Planet Kepler-10 c
Credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics

25. Research and Results: Significant Discoveries – Kepler 10c
Mass is 17.2 ± 1.9 M⊕ 
Radius of only  /-0.04 R⊕
Density of 7.1 ± 1.0 g cm−3
With these properties, Kepler-10c is best characterized as a solid planet.
Kepler-10c might be the first firm example of a population of solid planets with masses above 10 M⊕.
With a period of 45.29 days, a radius of 2.35 R⊕, and a density higher than Earth, Kepler-10c would be at the limit of the transition from terrestrial to gaseous planets.
Kepler-10c might be the first object confirming that longer period terrestrial planets can be more massive than ones with shorter periods. 
Fressin F, Torres G, D́esert G M, Charbonneau D, Batalha N M, Fortney J et al. KEPLER-10C, A 2.2-EARTH RADIUS TRANSITING PLANET IN A MULTIPLE SYSTEM
Credit: arxiv.org

26. Research and Results: Significant Discoveries – Kepler 10c
Kepler-10c was first identified by Kepler, and later validated using a combination of a computer simulation technique called "Blender," and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
Both of these methods are powerful ways to validate the Kepler planets that are too small and faraway for ground- based telescopes to confirm using the radial-velocity technique.
Fressin F, Torres G, D́esert G M, Charbonneau D, Batalha N M, Fortney J et al. KEPLER-10C, A 2.2-EARTH RADIUS TRANSITING PLANET IN A MULTIPLE SYSTEM
Credit: NASA (Artist’s Impression) Credit: arXiv

27. References BBC. 2015. 'Earth 2.0' found in Nasa Kepler telescope haul.
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. Discovery Program: Proposing a Mission
Express and Star New mega-Earth discovery
Exoplanet.eu Planet Kepler-10 c
Fressin F, Torres G, D́esert G M, Charbonneau D, Batalha N M, Fortney J et al. KEPLER-10C, A 2.2-EARTH RADIUS TRANSITING PLANET IN A MULTIPLE SYSTEM
Jenkins J M, Twicken J D, Batalha N M, Caldwell D A, Cochran W D, Endl M, et al Discovery and Validation of Kepler-452b: A 1.6 – R⊕ Super Earth Exoplanet in the Habitable Zone of a G2 Star. arXiv
Kepler and K2: Liftoff of the Kepler spacecraft. NASA

28. NASA Ames Research Center. 2016
NASA Ames Research Center Kepler Mission: A Search for Habitable Planets NASA Ames Research Centre About the Kepler Mission NASA Exoplanet Archive NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Kepler's Six Years In Science (and Counting): By The Numbers. California Institute of Technology NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth NASA Kepler and Kepler 2 Spacecraft and Instrument

29. NASA. 2015. Finding Another Earth
NASA Kepler and K2 Image Gallery
NASA How many exoplanets has Kepler discovered?
NASA Kepler and K2 Mission Objectives
NASA Kepler and K2. Space Fellowship
Space Fellowship NASA's Kepler Spacecraft Takes the Pulse of Distant Stars