362. Kepler sees first light

Star cluster NGC6791 from the Kepler’s first light image

Just a small part of Kepler’s field of view. The star in the center of the field is known to have large Jupiter-like planet called TrES-2.

Just wanted to let you know (if you did not hear about that already), that Kepler has just seen the first light (on Apr – the official NASA press-release came out on Apr 16.

The ultimate goal of the mission is to estimate the average number of large planets per cubic kPc in our galaxy. To achieve this goal, Kepler will be pointed at large star field in Cygnus constellation to watch the small drops of brightness of stars (in particular, we are interested in dwarfs) in the field, which presumably would correspond to a planet’s transit in front of the star. Cygnus constellation was chosen since it’s far north of the ecliptics, so that the Sun cannot get in the way of the Kepler’s view for the entire orbit. Kepler is good enough to detect a Earth-size planet orbiting Sun-like star of the magnitude of 14. Changes in brightness of the field have to be measured continuously (planet’s transit is a relatively rare event, and we don’t know where exactly it can happen, so we can only detect them statistically – looking at a large field full of stars), so HST is of no good for planet detection mission.