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ABSTRACT:
Humankind's speculation about the existence of other worlds like our own turned into a veritable quest with the launch of NASA's Kepler spacecraft in March 2009. The mission is designed to survey a slice of the Milky Way Galaxy to identify planets via transit photometry. The last year of science operation has been a year of milestones in terms of exoplanet characterization: rocky, Earth-size, circumbinary, Habitable Zone, and even invisible planets have made headlines. However, the real work lies in the large sample statistics of the catalogs of viable planet candidates -- statistics that will drive us toward a determination of eta-earth. This year, the Kepler team released its third catalog, consisting of 2,321 viable planet candidates associated with 1,790 stars. The characteristics of the catalog will be described as well as some of the milestone discoveries that have marked the last year and the strategies moving forward. Now in its fourth year of operation, Kepler is zeroing in on the answer to the question that drives the mission: are potentially habitable worlds abundant in our galaxy.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Prof. Batalha started her career as a stellar spectroscopist studying young, sun-like stars. Inspired by the growing number of exoplanet discoveries she joined the team lead by William Borucki at NASA’s Ames Research Center, working on transit photometry-an emerging technology for finding exoplanets. As a member of the Kepler team, Batalha is responsible for the selection of more than 150,000 stars the spacecraft monitors and works closely with team members at Ames to identify viable planet candidates from Kepler photometry. As Director of the Systems Teaching Institute at the NASA Research Park, Batalha is responsible for creating programs and resources for students pursuing careers in fields relevant to the mission of NASA Ames.
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