Kepler Mission Destined to Discover New Earth-like planets.

After the success of the TrES program, Edward Dunham, Lowell Observatory instrument scientist and a founding co-investigator of the TrES network, is pleased to be part of an endeavor that will build on the success of the Transatlantic Exoplanet Survey, which is a team that finds and categorizes planets on other solar systems.
Kepler Telescope was successfully launched on March, 6, 2009, at 10:49 pm EST. After blasting off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II, and entering space, The Kepler observation platform is the newest telescope surveying the expansive sky. The telescope is able to find Earth-like exoplanets. Although scientists have had lots of success finding huge Jupiter-like planets, their Earth-based telescopes aren’t capable of finding smaller planets. All this will change once the Kepler mission begins streaming in data. Like the TrES network, the Kepler probe will use a radio-velocity telescope to examine far away stars. Unlike TrES, the Kepler telescope will be satellite-based, which will allow it to see smaller fluctuations in light as small earth-like planets cross the star’s horizon. Dunham is a co-investigator on the Kepler mission, a NASA Discovery mission designed to detect Earth-size planets orbiting sun like stars. He has been working on the Kepler Mission in one way or another for the last 15 years. His responsibilities for Kepler center on focal plane development, optics and the system test program. The planet TrES-2 was co-discovered by Dunham and is noteworthy for being the first transiting planet in an area of the sky where the Kepler will focus on. Kepler will survey four classes of stars – F stars that are bigger and brighter than Earth's sun, G stars that are similar to our sun in brightness and size, and K and M stars, which are smaller and less bright than our sun. As a planet crosses the path of the Kepler telescope and its host star, the light of the host star is dimineshed.

Through the observation of the fluctuation in light of the stars it is surveying, The Kepler telescope is likely to yield the discovery of new planets the size of the Earth.“All of the exoplanets detected so far are gas giants, approximately 150 as of 2005,” said Dunham. Once the satellite begins sending data, scientists will receive stellar information deep within the Hercules consolation. From its view point, the telescope monitors 100,000 main-sequence stars for planets. The mission’s lifetime of 3.5 years could be extended to at least six years depending on funding and other variables.

Transits by terrestrial planets produce a small change in a star's brightness of about 100 parts per million (ppm), lasting for 2 to 16 hours. This change must be absolutely periodic if it is caused by a planet. “Kepler will find lots of objects like TrES-2 in its quest to discover Earth-size planets orbiting other stars. However, I imagine that TrES-2 will be one of Kepler's first targets, and will be an old friend by the end of the mission,” Dunham said. He, along with fellow astronomer Georgi Mandushev, has found four planets using the transient method. Their findings will be used to calibrate the telescope. Knowing the mass and radius of TrES--4 and characteristics of its host star allows scientists to fine-tune the new space based telescope. NASA officials released a YouTube update for the Kepler mission. The video gives its audience an idea about the revolutionary perspective this new satellite will give humanity. Mandushev, being a life long astronomy enthusiast and astronomer at Lowell observatory, believes

the Kepler Telescope will provide data that will change humanity’s perception of its place in the cosmos.