The search for new planets around distant stars
May 23rd 2009 12:09
Wide field view from onboard CCD cameras
The search commences for new planets around distant stars.
The search has gathered momentum over the last few years many planets have been discovered many light years from us. New technology and funding has made the search for planets outside our solar system even beyond our galaxy possible.
Image field on where the search will be centred
The first of the science data is scheduled to be sent down to Earth in June 2009 at which point analysis of the data by the science team will commence. It may take a while until we can find earth sized planet or planets that are roughly the same size as earth that may have similar conditions as we have on earth . However researchers expect to confirm relatively quickly the three planets known to cross in front of their stars in the Kepler’s field of view.
Who was Kepler ?
Johannes Kepler was born December 27, 1571 Kepler was introduced to the ideas of Copernicus and delighted in them. In 1596, while a mathematics teacher in Graz, he wrote and defended writing of Capernicus who published the Copernican system, the Mysterium Cosmographicum.
Kepler was the first to correctly explain planetary motion, thereby, becoming founder of celestial mechanics and the first "natural laws" in the modern sense.
His book Stereometrica Doliorum formed the basis of what we now use as integral calculus.
Kepler the space craft will detect planets indirectly, using the "transit" method.
A transit occurs each time a planet crosses the line-of-sight between the planet's parent star that it is orbiting and the observer. When this happens, the planet blocks some of the light from its star, resulting in a short duration dimming. This periodic signature is used to detect the planet and to determine its size and its orbit around its parent sun. The mission will spend the next three-and-a-half years staring at the same stars, looking for periodic dips in brightness.
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However, I have an instinct that we will find it someday in the future!