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from the wait-didn't-he-die-on-November-15-1630? dept.
NASA Retires Kepler Space Telescope
After nine years in deep space collecting data that indicate our sky to be filled with billions of hidden planets - more planets even than stars - NASA's Kepler space telescope has run out of fuel needed for further science operations. NASA has decided to retire the spacecraft within its current, safe orbit, away from Earth. Kepler leaves a legacy of more than 2,600 planet discoveries from outside our solar system, many of which could be promising places for life.
"As NASA's first planet-hunting mission, Kepler has wildly exceeded all our expectations and paved the way for our exploration and search for life in the solar system and beyond," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Not only did it show us how many planets could be out there, it sparked an entirely new and robust field of research that has taken the science community by storm. Its discoveries have shed a new light on our place in the universe, and illuminated the tantalizing mysteries and possibilities among the stars."
Kepler has opened our eyes to the diversity of planets that exist in our galaxy. The most recent analysis of Kepler's discoveries concludes that 20 to 50 percent of the stars visible in the night sky are likely to have small, possibly rocky, planets similar in size to Earth, and located within the habitable zone of their parent stars. That means they're located at distances from their parent stars where liquid water - a vital ingredient to life as we know it - might pool on the planet surface.
[...] Before retiring the spacecraft, scientists pushed Kepler to its full potential, successfully completing multiple observation campaigns and downloading valuable science data even after initial warnings of low fuel. The latest data, from Campaign 19, will complement the data from NASA's newest planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, launched in April. TESS builds on Kepler's foundation with fresh batches of data in its search of planets orbiting some 200,000 of the brightest and nearest stars to the Earth, worlds that can later be explored for signs of life by missions such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.
The Dawn spacecraft orbiting Ceres will also exhaust the remainder of its hydrazine in the coming days. It will maintain an orbit around Ceres for decades, if not centuries.
Also at The Verge and Associated Press.
Previously: Kepler Space Telescope Put into Hibernation Mode before Start of 19th Observation Campaign
NASA's Kepler Telescope Wakes Up, Begins Hunting for Planets Again
Related:
NASA Kepler Telescope Discovers 715 New Planets
Kepler Proves it can Still Find Planets
74 Small Exoplanets With Circular Orbits Identified
NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Earth-Like Planet In Sun-Like Star's Habitable Zone
Kepler Extended Mission Finds More Exoplanets
NASA's Kepler Mission Doubles Number of "Verified" Exoplanets, Including 9 Potentially Habitable
NASA Identifies "Pumpkin Stars"
Kepler Exoplanet Results Briefing on June 19th, Conference From 19th-23rd
Google Researchers Discover an 8th Planet in the Kepler-90 System
Citizen Scientists Credited for Discovery of Multi-Planet System
Kepler's K2 Mission Going Strong With Another 95 New Exoplanets Confirmed
Kepler Telescope Spots a Fast Supernova
NASA's TESS Mission Set to Launch on Wednesday, April 18
Researchers Suggest an Abundance of "Water World" Exoplanets
NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Nears the End of its Mission
New Evidence Supports Existence of Neptune-Sized Exomoon Orbiting Kepler-1625b
Gaia Observations Could Reduce the Number of Exoplanets Considered Potentially Habitable
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 31 2018, @12:21PM (3 children)
link: https://news.yahoo.com/nasas-planet-hunter-telescope-kepler-runs-fuel-193852963.html [yahoo.com]
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Kepler showed that "20 to 50 percent of the stars visible in the night sky are likely to have small, possibly rocky, planets similar in size to Earth, and located within the habitable zone of their parent stars," NASA said in a statement.
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Amazing! Should paint a a much more life-friendly-universe if plugged into the drake equation?
link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation [wikipedia.org]
Also gives me hope that there "must" be a way to reach these "distant" places; A universe that allows to look but not touch seems ... incomplete.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 31 2018, @02:35PM (2 children)
The universe is a strip club, prove me wrong.
Kraus, the "father of radio astronomy" had an entire section in his classic textbook about how humanity looks when viewed from interstellar scales in a radio wave perspective, in a relative way like how he had entire chapters on how nebulas and pulsars and stuff looked when viewed from Earth.
I won't waste time trying to summarize a chapter, plus the minimal research funded on the topic since then, but it seems even using last centuries technology even a relatively small nation-state thats extroverted enough could easily make a social statement along the lines of "primate pride day" or whatever using numerous different technologies, some not entirely obvious. But.... nobody out there does... Note that it is/should be easier to hear/notice someone being actively outspoken and loud vs this "hunt for red october" stuff trying to observe passive natural objects; its hard to notice a big boulder in the distance but easy to notice a hundred times smaller and lighter fire engine with all the lights and sirens on and it only takes a couple hundred watts to run that 19th century noisemaker stuff.
Maybe its good that the kind of people who fund Christian shortwave radio broadcasters, are not the kind of people who read obscure radio astronomy textbooks and papers. It would be quite affordable by modern standards for a relatively small gang of nuts to broadcast any old rando content to space aliens.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday November 01 2018, @12:10AM (1 child)
> It would be quite affordable by modern standards for a relatively small gang of nuts to broadcast any old rando content to space aliens.
But what would be the motivation? Missionary work is almost always used as a means of cultural conquest for the purpose of accumulating institutional and personal wealth and power, usually alongside military conquest - which would be effectively impossible against any aliens capable of sending anything of value to Earth.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday November 01 2018, @11:12AM
I'd propose the existence of twitter as a counterexample. I'm a better person than others because I wrote XYZ, even if nobody important is participating.