SMCAS

Oct 2nd 2009

Dr. Jeffrey Van Cleve

                                                                      Friday, October 2nd, 2009

 

SPEAKER:   Dr. Jeffery Van Cleve 

                      SETI Institute at NASA Ames

                                                                                                                                

 TOPIC:        Roundup at the Kepler Corral:                                                                                       

                     The Race to Detect the First Earth-sized Planet in the Habitable Zone of a Sunlike Star 

 

Presentation slides:

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 Presentation Abstract:

The plurality of habitable worlds has preoccupied astronomers for ages.  We are fortunate to live in a time where such questions can be answered by observation rather than by philosophical speculation alone.  Towards that end, NASA's Kepler Mission was designed to detect transits of Earth-size planets in the "habitable zone" of main-sequence stars, and was launched into a trailing heliocentric orbit on March 7, 2009 UT.  Kepler will continuously monitor more than 100,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra by means of differential photometry for 3.5 years, with a photometric precision of 20 ppm for a 6.5-hr integration on 12th magnitude G2V stars.   

Dr. Van Cleve will first define what he means by "Earth-sized" and "habitable", and apply those definitions to the population of currently known extrasolar planets, and to the planets potentially discoverable by Kepler.  He will then present a description of the Kepler flight hardware and data analysis pipeline, and some first results, including the secondary transit of HAT-P-7b (W. J. Borucki et al., Science 7 August 2009: 709) and a bestiary of stellar variability.  He will end with some speculation on why the end of the nominal Kepler mission coincides with the end of the Mayan calendar (and possibly the end of the world  as we know it) on Dec. 21, 2012!

Speaker Biography: 

Dr. Jeffrey Van Cleve was a CCD focal plane and systems engineer for Kepler at Ball Aerospace, which is the prime contractor for the Kepler Mission.  He now works for the SETI Institute at NASA Ames on Kepler data analysis.  Along with other members of the Kepler Science Office, Dr. Van Cleve examines the data products produced by the Kepler science data analysis pipeline, characterizes anomalous features, and suggests data analysis improvements which are needed to allow Kepler's data to reach its full scientific potential.

                                           

 Imagery that inspires

 

サンマテオ郡宇宙観測協会

１０月　一般公開講演（無料）

 

演題：「ケプラー計画コーレルの総括報告：

太陽系に似た星の地球規模で生息可能な惑星を競争で発見中」

講師：ジェフリ－・バン・クリーブ博士

ボール航空宇宙技術工学社

 

時：１０月２日（金）８時（開場７時半）

場所：カレッジ・オブ・サンマテオ、プラネタリウム

（子供歓迎、駐車無料）

地図参照：http://www.smcas.com/events/activities_at_csm

 

講演予告：

ケプラー計画の目的は、白鳥座の十万固の星の体系の中で「生息可能

（HZ）圏内」に周期する地球規模の惑星を、識別測光技術を手段にして、

その軌道を探知することにあります。

 

ジェフはケプラー計画の初成果を論議し、当計画を支える科学を説明し、

ケプラー設計が調査する温度の箱（「コーラル」）に言及し、地表を基

にした放射速度や引力による光の屈折が見つける太陽系外の惑星の総数を

表示します。また、ケプラーの発見に期待する地球に一番近い惑星軌道と

地球との距離計算を提示します。終わりに、ケプラー初期計画を終結する

日が偶然、マヤ分明カレンダーの（地球最期の日、と目されている）

２０１２年１２月２１日であるのは何故か、という疑問に答えてくれます。