Reflections on Kepler's 3rd birthday



Artist's rendition of Kepler spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Kepler mission/Wendy Stenzel

Three years ago, I witnessed the launch of NASA's Kepler mission. As the first space mission designed from the ground-up to study exoplanets, it was a major juncture in the search for other worlds and all of astronomy. Yet, the launch was really one more opportunity to practice patience. As a part of the Kepler Science Team, I waited to learn of the spacecraft's health, then the pointing and focus, then the data quality, then enough data to begin to do science, then the first planet candidates, then the progress of our colleagues in improved data analysis techniques. Now, we wait for Kepler to observe long enough to find Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of solar-like stars.

As a member of the transiting timing variations working group, I'm also anxiously waiting for enough data to measure the masses of small planets, so we can map the transition between "super-Earth's" and "mini-Neptunes". These new classes of planets for which there is no analog in our solar system are actually quite common for other stars. Why doesn't our own solar system have any super-Earths (or mini-Neptunes)? How did Earth resist Icarus's urge to fly too close too the Sun for life, like most of the thousands of planets being discovered by Kepler? Is there something special about our solar system? Continued observations and analysis of the Kepler data provide best chance to address questions like these.

At the launch, several mission's founders were already a tight nit team. Over the last three years, I and my small research group at UF have become part of the Kepler family. I can't guess how many emails, telecons, heated debates we've had. Those have pushed us to work many late nights to search for planets, to vet planet candidates, to optimize the next quarter's target list, to provide some analysis in time for another team member's paper, to explain why NASA should keep the mission alive beyond 2012, and to convey results and the sense of wonder to the public. It's been an exhausting, but exhilarating ride. I hope we can hang on for a few more years.

Prof. Ford during the Kepler launch, 2009. Credit: NASA/Kepler Mission.

Kepler has opened our eyes to the power of time-domain astronomy, providing nearly-continuous, long-term and ultra-high precision photometry. The only analogy I can offer is to how much we learned about the universe when previous NASA missions made it possible to see the sky in wavelengths previously inaccessible due to Earth's atmosphere hanging over telescopes on the ground. Far above Earth's atmosphere, Kepler's data quality is so much better than anything before it that most astronomers are just beginning to appreciate the possibilities for studying planets and stars in ways never before possible. Kepler has already returned a treasure trove of data, one that will be mined by astronomers for many years if not decades into the future.

Kepler was always intended to be a stepping stone towards future missions that could study the atmospheres and surfaces of potentially Earth-like planets. I hope that humans will muster another great observatory optimized for exoplanet science, so we can realize those goals during my career, or at least my lifetime. If not, at least we have the Kepler Mission.

Professor Eric B. Ford.

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