New Kepler Mission Findings Presented at 218th American Astronomical Society Meeting

Kepler-10c and a New Method to Validate Planets

Today the Kepler team is announcing another member of the Kepler-10 family, called Kepler-10c . It has a radius of 2.2 times that of Earth’s, and it orbits the star every 45 days. Both Kepler-10b and 10c would be blistering hot worlds.

Click for an image feature on the family portrait of Kepler-10

Kepler’s Astounding Haul of Multiple Planet Systems

Cambridge, MA — NASA’s Kepler spacecraft is proving itself to be a prolific planet hunter. Within just the first four months of data, astronomers have found evidence for more than 1,200 planetary candidates. Of those, 408 reside in systems containing two or more planets, and most of those look very different than our solar system.

– Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Press Release 2011-14 of May 23, 2011 For more, visit: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2011/pr201114.html

Download the related slides presented by David Latham, PowerPoint, 1.2 MB

How to Learn a Star’s True Age

Cambridge, MA — For many movie stars, their age is a well-kept secret. In space, the same is true of the actual stars. Like our Sun, most stars look almost the same for most of their lives. So how can we tell if a star is one billion or 10 billion years old? Astronomers may have found a solution – measuring the star’s spin.
– Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Press Release 2011-15 of May 23, 2011. For more, visit: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2011/pr201115.html

Download the related slides presented by Francois Fressin, PowerPoint, 7.3 MB

Kepler Mission Progress: Day 808 Presentations

• William Borucki, Principal Investigator, Kepler Mission, NASA Ames Research Center, PowerPoint, 3.8 MB
• Dave Latham, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, PowerPoint, 1.2 MB
• Francois Fressin, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, PowerPoint, 7.3 MB
• Geoff Marcy, University of California, Berkeley, PowerPoint, 4.5 MB
• Soren Meibom, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, PDF 13.3 MB

Archive of the entire Press Conference may be found on Archived AAS Press-Conference Webcasts. It is a Flash file, over 200 Mb. To view it, visit: http://aas.org/press/archived_press_conferences