Kepler Spacecraft Mission

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The Kepler Spacecraft Mission is a NASA Mission to discover extrasolar Milky-Way terrestrial planets (and ideally goldi-locks planets).



References

2010

  • http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/QuickGuide/
    • The scientific objective of the Kepler Mission is to explore the structure and diversity of planetary systems. This is achieved by surveying a large sample of stars to:
      • Determine the abundance of terrestrial and larger planets in or near the habitable zone of a wide variety of stars;
      • Determine the distribution of sizes and shapes of the orbits of these planets;
      • Estimate how many planets there are in multiple-star systems;
      • Determine the variety of orbit sizes and planet reflectivities, sizes, masses and densities of short-period giant planets;
      • Identify additional members of each discovered planetary system using other techniques; and
      • Determine the properties of those stars that harbor planetary systems.
    • The Kepler Mission also supports the objectives of future NASA Origins theme missions Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) and Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF),
      • By identifying the common stellar characteristics of host stars for future planet searches,
      • By defining the volume of space needed for the search and
      • By allowing SIM to target systems already known to have terrestrial planets.