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Space Missions for Exoplanet Science: Kepler/K2

Handbook of Exoplanets

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Abstract

The Kepler Mission is a space observatory launched in 2009 designed to monitor 170,000 stars over a period of 4 years to explore the structure and diversity of planetary systems, in particular to determine the occurrence frequency of Earth-size and larger planets in and near the habitable zone (HZ) of Sun-like stars, the size and orbital distributions of these planets, and the types of stars they orbit. Kepler is the tenth in the series of NASA Discovery Program missions that were competitively selected, PI-directed, medium-cost missions.

The Kepler instrument is based on a 0.95 m aperture Schmidt-design telescope with a 113 sq. deg. FOV with 84 channels of CCD detectors. The spacecraft orbits the Sun in 53-week orbit and points at a single field of stars to avoid missing transits. It achieves a photometric precision of 10 ppm for bright, quiet stars for periods of several hours, i.e., the typical duration of planetary transits.

During the 4 years of its operation, an analysis of its data detected over 4600 planetary candidates which include several hundred Earth-size planetary candidates, over 3458 confirmed planets, and 21 Earth-size and super-Earth-size planets in the HZ. These discoveries provide the information required for estimates of the occurrence frequency of planets in our galaxy. The mission results show that most stars have planets, many of these planets are similar in size to the Earth, and systems with several planets are common. In combination with radial velocity measurements, the Kepler results were able to distinguish rocky planets from planets that might be composed mostly of water or gas. The Kepler Mission also made major contributions to astrophysical sciences, including the detection of “heartbeat” stars, supernovae, and the interior structure and characteristics of red giant stars. At the end of its 4-year mission, the Kepler Mission was re-proposed as a community facility (“K2”) that provided high-precision photometric time-series data for tens of thousands of stars in each of 13 FOVs along the ecliptic.

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Acknowledgments

Kepler was competitively selected as the tenth Discovery mission with funding provided by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The mission success was accomplished through the strenuous efforts of BATC personnel to develop the instrument and spacecraft; the space controllers at Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics; the managers at NASA HQ, Ames, Marshall, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory; the Kepler team that analyzed the data and provided the science results; the thousands of members of the worldwide science community who were responsible for many of the exciting discoveries; the SETI Institute and Lawrence Hall of Science personnel who provided education and public outreach; and the teams at Space Telescope Science Institute and California Institute of Technology who archived and provided the data to the community. Other organizations that made important contributions to the mission include Carnegie Institute of Washington; Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; W. M. Keck Observatory; Lick Observatory, University of California; Lowell Observatory; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; NASA Kennedy Spaceflight Center; University of Aarhus; University of California, Berkeley; University of Texas, Austin; and University of Washington, Seattle.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA

    William J. Borucki

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  1. William J. Borucki
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Correspondence to William J. Borucki .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, La Laguna, Spain

    Hans J. Deeg

  2. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, La Laguna, Spain

    Juan Antonio Belmonte

Section Editor information

  1. Leiden Observatory, Leiden, RA, The Netherlands

    Malcolm Fridlund

  2. Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Onsala, Sweden

    Malcolm Fridlund

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Borucki, W.J. (2024). Space Missions for Exoplanet Science: Kepler/K2. In: Deeg, H.J., Belmonte, J.A. (eds) Handbook of Exoplanets . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30648-3_80-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30648-3_80-2

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-30648-3

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  1. Latest

    Space Missions for Exoplanet Science: Kepler/K2
    Published:
    12 May 2024

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30648-3_80-2

  2. Original

    Space Missions for Exoplanet Science: Kepler/K2
    Published:
    27 July 2017

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30648-3_80-1

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