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Astronomy

How Would You Use Kepler?

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
August 8, 2013
Filed under , ,

Soliciting Community Input: Alternate Science Investigations for Kepler
“The purpose of this call for white papers is to solicit community input for alternate science investigations that may be performed using Kepler and are consistent with its probable two-wheel performance. Herein, we provide initial information as to the preliminary assessment of the pointing ability of the Kepler spacecraft using only two reaction wheels. In addition, we provide baseline information on the Kepler focal plane imaging CCD array (Kepler’s only instrument) and give estimates of the photometric performance that may be possible in two-wheel mode.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

9 responses to “How Would You Use Kepler?”

  1. Odyssey2020 says:
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    Looks like Kepler’s main mission is over but it still is a rousing success. Now let’s go pick this baby up when it comes back by the earth again around 2050!

  2. Gerald R Everett says:
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    Good work Kepler. We will pick you up someday for the Mars Museum.

  3. ProfSWhiplash says:
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    Thank you, Kepler, for your stellar (literally) performance!!

    As a possible secondary mission, given its reduced capabilities (and if I wanted to bother with making a white paper), would it be possible for Kepler to orient itself to the Centauri system — maybe Proxima, since it’s closer — and just stare at it until its reaction wheels grind to a halt?
    I realize Kelper was designed for far & distant searches for planets (and I think its sun-shield was for a particular orientation), but perhaps we might get something – even if just a hint.

    • Geoffrey Landis says:
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      Unless the orbital plane of any planets around Alpha Centauri was in line with us, Kepler wouldn’t see anything. That’s a low low probability; if any of the stars of Alpha Centauri had planets, odds are that Kepler wouldn’t see them. The way Kepler found planets was by looking at enormous numbers of stars, so even with low probabilities of the correct alignment, enough would be aligned to get statistics.
      If you’re looking at just one star (especially a bright one), you can do that with a much lower field of view instrument than Kepler.

      • ProfSWhiplash says:
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        I believe you are right on with Alpha’s alignment. But isn’t Proxima closer to that criteria? Plus it’s a red dwarf, which I understand seems to be a favorite target for detecting planets (not that there’d ever be anything remotely earthlike around it).

  4. Robert Rice says:
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    Focus that baby on Zeta Reticuli

  5. Steve Whitfield says:
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    I’m not familiar with how much the field of view and focus are adjustable, but if we’re looking at Kepler being maintained in a fixed attitude, instead of planets, can we have it do a “long fixed stare” at other features, such a nebula, or a suspected black hole location, or a known GRB origin, etc., and see if it picks up anything over time that we otherwise would see only by chance good timing.

    As a side note (and a pet peeve), I wish the people who write these things would learn that alternate does not mean the same thing as alternative, the latter being the word that belonged in the solicitation.

    • cb450sc says:
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      Long precision stares are specifically what Kepler can’t do anymore. That’s how it used to operate. On two wheels it undergoes continuous drift. Kepler was very specialized for what it did – it has huge pixels and can’t actually downlink all the CCD data, at least not frequently. Previously it just downlinked subregions.

  6. se jones says:
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    Help search for a suitable Kuiper Belt target for New Horizons.

    A suitable algorithm can filter out objects with different “streaks” than the background stars. Ground based instruments can then do follow-up observations.