Posted on 12/14/2021 11:21:50 AM PST by SunkenCiv
The number of known exoplanets made a big jump up in November 2021, when astronomers announced a whopping 301 newly confirmed planets and an additional 366 new planet candidates. NASA’s Kepler planet-hunter – a space observatory – gathered the data. Kepler launched and began operations in 2009. It ran out of fuel and was retired in late 2018. But astronomers are still mining the mission’s data, making new discoveries of distant worlds...
Overall, the Kepler mission was immensely successful. As of December 6, 2021, astronomers recognize 4,888 confirmed exoplanets. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Kepler single-handedly discovered most of the exoplanets we know about today...
The NASA research team used a machine learning process called ExoMiner to find 301 new validated planets. Meanwhile, astronomers at UCLA found 366 new planetary candidates using their own new algorithm...
ExoMiner found the new exoplanets by analyzing the data from the remaining Kepler dataset of possible planets in the Kepler Data Archive. Before this, scientists had already known of them from the Kepler Science Operations Center pipeline, but they were still just candidates. Now, ExoMiner has confirmed them as actual planets...
Ultimately, the entire data set from K2 was analyzed, which consisted of 500 terabytes and more than 800 million images of stars. The researchers used UCLA’s Hoffman2 Cluster to process the data...
As well as the new exoplanets, the research team also identified 381 planets that were already known about. Altogether, the team found 747 unique planet candidates and 57 multiplanet systems in the K2 data.
(Excerpt) Read more at earthsky.org ...
Kepler uses the transit method to detect exoplanets. When a planet passes in front of its star, from our vantage point it causes a small dip in the star’s brightness that scientists can measure to obtain more data.Image via Goddard Space Flight Center/ JPL-Caltech.
Most of the rest of the Kepler keyword, sorted:
They don’t have democRATs there do they?
Even the Kepler needs a hepler.
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AI discovers over 300 unknown exoplanets in Kepler telescope data
By Tereza Pultarova
published 16 days ago
The AI algorithm is more efficient in distinguishing false positives from the real stuff than human experts.
https://www.space.com/artificial-intelligence-300-exoplanets-in-kepler-data
No one lives on ‘em, but there are ballot drop boxes on each one.
from (I think) 2015:
A New Transiting Planet Search Applied to Kepler and K2: Discovery of Hundreds of Planet Candidates, Eclipsing Binary Stars, and a Self-lensing Binary System
Ethan Kruse
Since the launch of the Kepler telescope in 2009, the transit method has become the most common way to discover exoplanets. Several groups have created planet search pipelines for both the original Kepler mission and its successor K2. While well designed to find the majority of exoplanets, certain classes of exoplanets are more likely to be overlooked by most planet searches: notably systems displaying three or fewer transits or those with transit timing variations. I have developed a comprehensive planet search technique that is capable of detecting most transiting exoplanets, including the ones commonly missed by other searches. In this thesis I present my transiting planet search, QATS, and I apply it to the first nine campaigns of K2. I have found over 700 planet candidates, including high multiplicity systems with five or six planets. I compare my results to those of other groups and show I am sensitive to planets at all orbital periods, including single transits. I put my results into the context of the wider exoplanet sample, and I show how planets from K2 can answer some questions created by the Kepler planets. Finally, I demonstrate the flexibility of my planet search technique by presenting a fortuitous discovery: the first self-lensing binary star system. What at first appeared to be a reverse transit -— the star getting brighter when a planet passed in front -— is instead a white dwarf in a binary star system whose light gravitationally lenses its companion every orbit. The methods developed in this thesis will be useful for any future transit searches as well, most notably the new TESS mission. With observation sectors of just 27 days, QATS’s ability to detect single transits can dramatically extend TESS’s sensitivity to planets in more distant orbits; on the other end, QATS’s transit timing variation detection will help find planets in the continuous viewing zone, or perhaps planets in an extended mission.
https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773/42953
Oh, sorry, 2018.
Oh crap!
*
So far, the only XO planets we can find are too big, too hot or too cold or too close to the star or lack atmosphere to be habitable.
And we can only look at stars whose planets happen to be in the side facing us. If they are at 90° then they are invisible to us......................
What, they have run out of dead people?
The original estimate for detection of planets that size by Kepler was between 40 and 50. The really big planets close to their stars are easiest to detect and verify, and that’s also true of the Kepler capability. Looking at sun-like stars wasn’t a priority. The speculation about atmosphere isn’t in the Kepler data. Relying on the ecliptic orientation of the stars remains the best method at these distances, and viewing 100s of 1000s of stars means lots of detections, since a rather large number will be lined up adventitiously, hence, the initial data yielded thousands of exoplanets.
Kepler-1649c
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/earth-size-habitable-zone-planet-found-hidden-in-early-nasa-kepler-data
[snip] While previous searches with a computer algorithm misidentified it, researchers reviewing Kepler data took a second look at the signature and recognized it as a planet. Out of all the exoplanets found by Kepler, this distant world – located 300 light-years from Earth – is most similar to Earth in size and estimated temperature. This newly revealed world is only 1.06 times larger than our own planet. Also, the amount of starlight it receives from its host star is 75% of the amount of light Earth receives from our Sun – meaning the exoplanet’s temperature may be similar to our planet’s, as well. But unlike Earth, it orbits a red dwarf. Though none have been observed in this system, this type of star is known for stellar flare-ups that may make a planet’s environment challenging for any potential life. [/snip]
Kepler-452b
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-452b
[snip] Kepler-452b orbits its star at a distance of 1.04 AU (156,000,000 km; 97,000,000 mi) from its host star (nearly the same distance as Earth from the Sun), with an orbital period of roughly 384 days, has a mass at least 5 times that of Earth, and has a radius of around 1.5 times that of Earth. [/snip]
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