Kepler flew over the moon

Yesterday, the Kepler spacecraft overcame the lunar orbit and continues to move away from the Earth at a speed of 8 km / s. Four days passed from his six-year mission. And now it is the most vigilant "eye" of mankind in space, which is specifically designed to search for terrestrial planets.

"Kepler" is a powerful digital camera, bolted to a large optical telescope. After three weeks, the sheeting will be removed from the telescope. Over the next two months, Kepler will be calibrated and tested, and a month later, scientists will begin to search for large planets, the so-called “hot jupiters.” After two or three years, the telescope will be reconfigured to search for terrestrial planets.

Kepler will observe the same piece of the starry sky measuring about 10x10 °, containing from 100,000 to 170,000 stars.


Each of the stars will be measured in brightness every 30 minutes. Discovering planets is a new space telescope that will obscure the light of a star, which occurs when a planet passes between a telescope and its native star. The size and frequency of obscurations can be used to estimate the size of the planet and the orbital period. The size and mass of a star is estimated by its spectral class and brightness. Knowing this, one can calculate the size of the orbit and assess whether the planet falls into a hypothetical “life zone” in which water can exist on its surface in liquid form.
')
Now communication with "Kepler" is maintained around the clock. When he goes into working mode, the communication will occur every four days. And once a month the telescope will turn the antenna to the Earth to merge all the collected information.

via Computerworld