Ames to pitch NASA on value of 'new' Kepler mission

By Stephen Clark

ASTRONOMY NOW

Posted: 16 November 2013

Artist's concept of the Kepler spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Ames

Managers in charge of the Kepler telescope have identified a way of salvaging the crippled observatory for a modified, less-sensitive cosmic survey for alien worlds, but NASA may not have the money to pay for the mission.

Since Kepler was knocked offline in May, officials at NASA's Ames Research Center in California have considered and analyzed new missions for the telescope.

And they think they have found a concept that is both feasible and scientifically intriguing.

The new mission scenario, dubbed "K2," calls for pointing Kepler across a swath of sky known as the ecliptic plane, or the plane where all the solar system's planets orbit the sun.

If approved by NASA Headquarters, the renewed Kepler campaign would be a shift from looking at stars like the sun to observing smaller, cooler stars that may harbor rocky planets close in, meaning they would be easier to detect.

"This is science that Kepler can do, and the K2 mission can do this uniquely, so this is really a selling point," said Steve Howell, Kepler's project scientist, during a Nov. 4 presentation at the second Kepler Science Conference held at Ames.

Plagued by reaction wheels and unable to adequately control its roll motion, Kepler is no longer capable of holding its gaze toward a field of more than 150,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra. Kepler's optical detectors kept up a near-contant stare at the star field, which was selected because it was representative of the rest of the Milky Way, allowing scientists to extend their findings predict what may lie elsewhere in the sky.

Continue Learning: http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n1311/16kepler/#.UojvPvmKK-0

NASA Spacecraft Finds Bounty of Alien Planets, Including 104 Potentially Habitable Worlds

From the first three years of Kepler data, more than 3,500 potential worlds have emerged. Since the last update in January, the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler increased by 29 percent and now totals 3,538, analysis led by Jason Rowe, a SETI research scientist.
Credit: SETI

The search for other Earth-like planets in the galaxy got a major boost today (Nov. 4) with the discovery of hundreds of newfound alien planets identified by NASA's Kepler spacecraft, a haul that includes 104 strange, new worlds that could potentially support life.

Scientists with NASA's planet-hunting Kepler mission announced the discovery of 833 new planet candidates during a press conference today, bringing the total number of candidate worlds to 3,538. Of the 104 planets in the habitable zone, 10 of them are about the size of Earth, scientists say.

Continue Learning: http://www.space.com/23460-alien-planets-kepler-discoveries-habitable-worlds.html