Kepler space observatory mission
Q. Which of the following statements is/are correct about Kepler?
1. Kepler is a space observatory launched by NASA to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.
2. It is a part of Discovery program.- Published on 11 Jan 16a. Only 1
b. Only 2
c. Both
d. None
ANSWER: Both
- Kepler is designed to survey a portion of our region of the Milky Way to discover dozens of Earth-size exoplanets in or near the habitable zone and estimate how many of the billions of stars in the Milky Way have such planets.
- Kepler's sole instrument is a photometer that continually monitors the brightness of over 145,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view.
- This data is transmitted to Earth, then analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by exoplanets that cross in front of their host star.
- NASA announced the 1000th confirmed exoplanet discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope till January 6, 2015.
- Four of the newly confirmed exoplanets were found to orbit within habitable zones of their related stars: three of the four, Kepler-438b, Kepler-442b and Kepler-452b, are near-Earth-size and likely rocky; the fourth, Kepler-440b, is a super-Earth.
