NASA’s Kepler mission has taken its first images of the star-rich sky where it will soon begin hunting for planets like Earth.
The new “first light” images show the mission’s target patch of sky, a
vast starry field in the Cygnus-Lyra region of our Milky Way galaxy.
One image shows millions of stars in Kepler’s full field of view,
while two others zoom in on portions of the larger region. The images
can be seen online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/multimedia/20090416.html
“Kepler’s first glimpse of the sky is awe-inspiring,” said Lia
LaPiana, Kepler’s program executive at NASA Headquarters in
Washington. “To be able to see millions of stars in a single snapshot
is simply breathtaking.”
One new image from Kepler shows its entire field of view — a
100-square-degree portion of the sky, equivalent to two side-by-side
dips of the Big Dipper. The regions contain an estimated 14 millions
stars, more than 100,000 of which were selected as ideal candidates
for planet hunting.
This image from NASA’s Kepler mission shows the telescope’s full field of view — an expansive star-rich patch of sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra stretching across 100 square degrees, or the equivalent of two side-by-side dips of the Big Dipper.
A cluster of stars, called NGC 6791, and a star with a known planet, called TrES-2, are outlined. The cluster is eight billion years old, and located 13,000 light-years from Earth. It is called an open cluster because its stars are loosely bound and have started to spread out. TrES-2 is a hot Jupiter-like planet known to cross in front of, or transit, its star every 2.5 days. Kepler will hunt for transiting planets that are as small as Earth.
Two other views focus on just one-thousandth of the full field of
view. In one image, a cluster of stars located about 13,000
light-years from Earth, called NGC 6791, can be seen in the lower
left corner. The other image zooms in on a region containing a star,
called Tres-2, with a known Jupiter-like planet orbiting every 2.5
days.
“It’s thrilling to see this treasure trove of stars,” said William
Borucki, science principal investigator for Kepler at NASA’s Ames
Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. “We expect to find hundreds
of planets circling those stars, and for the first time, we can look
for Earth-size planets in the habitable zones around other stars like
the sun.”
Kepler will spend the next three-and-a-half years searching more than
100,000 pre-selected stars for signs of planets. It is expected to
find a variety of worlds, from large, gaseous ones, to rocky ones as
small as Earth. The mission is the first with the ability to find
planets like ours — small, rocky planets orbiting sun-like stars in
the habitable zone, where temperatures are right for possible lakes
and oceans of water.
This image zooms into a small portion of Kepler’s full field of view — an expansive, 100-square-degree patch of sky in our Milky Way galaxy. At the center of the field is a star with a known “hot Jupiter” planet, named “TrES-2,” zipping closely around it every 2.5 days. Kepler will observe TrES-2 and other known planets as a test to demonstrate that it is working properly, and to obtain new information about those planets.
The area pictured is one-thousandth of Kepler’s full field of view, and shows hundreds of stars at the very edge of the constellation Cygnus. The image has been color-coded so that brighter stars appear white, and fainter stars, red. It is a 60-second exposure, taken on April 8, 2009, one day after the spacecraft’s dust cover was jettisoned.
To find the planets, Kepler will stare at one large expanse of sky for
the duration of its lifetime, looking for periodic dips in starlight
that occur as planets circle in front of their stars and partially
block the light. Its 95-megapixel camera, the largest ever launched
into space, can detect tiny changes in a star’s brightness of only 20
parts per million. Images from the camera are intentionally blurred
to minimize the number of bright stars that saturate the detectors.
While some of the slightly saturated stars are candidates for planet
searches, heavily saturated stars are not.
“Everything about Kepler has been optimized to find Earth-size
planets,” said James Fanson, Kepler’s project manager at NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Our images are road maps
that will allow us, in a few years, to point to a star and say a
world like ours is there.”
Scientists and engineers will spend the next few weeks calibrating
Kepler’s science instrument, the photometer, and adjusting the
telescope’s alignment to achieve the best focus. Once these steps are
complete, the planet hunt will begin.
“We’ve spent years designing this mission, so actually being able to
see through its eyes is tremendously exciting,” said Eric Bachtell,
the lead Kepler systems engineer at Ball Aerospace & Technology Corp.
in Boulder, Colo. Bachtell has been working on the design,
development and testing of Kepler for nine years.
Kepler is a NASA Discovery mission. Ames is responsible for the ground
system development, mission operations and science data analysis. JPL
manages the Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies
Corp. is responsible for developing the Kepler flight system and
supporting mission operations.
For images, animations and more information about the Kepler mission,
visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler
