More Kepler Discoveries Announced

NASA Media Telecon to Announce Latest Kepler Discoveries, 26 Feb.
“NASA will host a news teleconference at 1 p.m. EST (18:00 UTC), Wednesday, Feb. 26, to announce new discoveries made by its planet-hunting mission, the Kepler Space Telescope.”
Kepler Has Discovered 715 New Extrasolar Planets
“NASA’s Kepler mission announced Wednesday the discovery of 715 new planets. These newly-verified worlds orbit 305 stars, revealing multiple-planet systems much like our own solar system. Nearly 95 percent of these planets are smaller than Neptune, which is almost four times the size of Earth. This discovery marks a significant increase in the number of known small-sized planets more akin to Earth than previously identified exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system.”

Keith’s note: These are recent papers by several of the press conference participants. They seem to be interested in Earth-sized panets and habitable zones. They also proposed to do observations using Kepler in two-wheel or K2 mode. Stay tuned.
Two-Wheel Kepler Mission Invited to 2014 Senior Review
“The Kepler team’s proposal, dubbed K2, demonstrated a clever and feasible methodology for accurately controlling the Kepler spacecraft at the level of precision required for scientifically valuable data collection. The team must now further validate the concept and submit a Senior Review proposal that requests the funding necessary to continue the Kepler mission, with sufficient scientific justification to make it a viable option for the use of NASA’s limited resources.”
Searching for Terrestrial Planets Orbiting in the Habitable Zone of Ultra-Cool Stars and Brown Dwarfs
“We propose to use Kepler in 2-wheel mode to conduct a detailed search for Earth-sized planets orbiting ultra-cool stars and brown dwarfs (spectral types from M7 to L3). This population of objects presents several advantages for exoplanet surveys.”
A Habitable Zone Census via Transit Timing and the Imperative for Continuing to Observe the Kepler Field
“We propose a scientific program to complete a census of planets, characterizing their masses, orbital properties, and dynamical histories using continued observations of the Kepler field of view with the Kepler spacecraft in a two reaction wheel mission.”