NASA NEWS

The artistic impression shows NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft operating in a new mission profile called K2. In May the spacecraft began its new mission observing in the ecliptic plane, the orbital path of Earth around the sun, depicted by the grey-blue line marked by opaque cross-like shapes. Each shape represents the field-of-view of an observing campaign.

The K2 mission observes a specific portion of the distant sky for approximately 80 days, until it is necessary to rotate the spacecraft to prevent sunlight from entering the telescope. The spacecraft orbits the sun every 372 days as it trails Earth, allowing for four full campaigns per orbit or year. The arching band of stars is the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Using publicly available data collected by the spacecraft in February 2014 during the performance concept test to prove K2 would work, astronomers have confirmed the first exoplanet detected by the K2 mission. The newly confirmed planet, HIP 116454b, is 2.5 times the diameter of Earth, and closely orbits a star smaller and cooler than our sun once every nine days, making the planet too hot for life as we know it. The star and planet are 180 light-years from Earth toward the constellation Pisces.

In May 2013, data collection for Kepler’s extended prime mission came to an end when the second of four reaction wheels used to stabilize the spacecraft failed. Without at least three functioning reaction wheels, Kepler couldn’t be pointed at the original field with sufficient stability to precisely measure the dimming of starlight caused by a planet when it passes or transits in front of a distant star.

Rather than giving up on the stalwart spacecraft, a team of scientists and engineers crafted a resourceful strategy to use pressure from sunlight as a virtual reaction wheel to help control the spacecraft while observing the sky in the ecliptic plane. The resulting K2 mission promises to not only continue Kepler’s planet hunt, but to expand that search to bright nearby stars which harbor planets that allow scientists to study them in detail to better understand their composition. K2 will also introduce new opportunities to observe star clusters, active galaxies, and supernovae.

Link to full NASA press release: NASA’s Kepler Reborn, Makes First Exoplanet Find of New Mission

Credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T Pyle
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NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft makes a comeback with the discovery of the first exoplanet found using its new mission — K2.
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Now in its seventh month of operation, K2 began its third campaign on Nov. 12. During Campaign 2, Oort Cloud native Comet Siding Spring passed through K2’s field-of-view adding to the data collected by the fleet of NASA science assets.
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On Oct. 20, the Kepler spacecraft joined the fleet of NASA science assets that observed distant Oort Cloud native Comet Siding Spring as it passed through K2’s Campaign 2 field-of-view on its long journey around the sun. The data collected by K2 will add to the study of the comet, giving scientists an invaluable opportunity to learn more about the materials, including water and carbon compounds, that existed during the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago.

Taken by the Kepler spacecraft operating as the K2 mission, the full-frame image (left) is of the K2 Campaign 2 field-of-view. The image contains bright stars of the constellation Scorpius, with Antares just on the left edge of module-12 in the middle row second from the left. The globular clusters M4 and NGC 6144 can also be seen on module-12 along with the nebulosity of the well-studied rho-Ophiuchus star-forming region. In the upper right of module-2, the first visible module from the left in the top row, Comet Siding Springs can be seen.

The zoomed image (right) shows the nucleus and fuzzy trailing tail of Comet Siding Spring. Because the comet is moving rapidly, its nucleus is smeared over 20 pixels in this 30-minute exposure image causing it to appear oblong. The tail of the comet extends up and to the left from the nucleus. The comet moved through the K2 field-of-view in about 77 hours. A special purpose aperture was created to capture the comet as it moved through the image, allowing scientists to study its behavior just after the close encounter with Mars.

K2 is the two-wheel operation mode of the Kepler spacecraft. Based on a recommendation from the agency’s 2014 Senior Review of its operating missions, the K2 mission was approved to receive NASA funding for two years and officially began in May. 

Image credit: NASA Ames/W Stenzel; SETI Institute/D Caldwell
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Scientists and engineers from NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler and K2 missions will answer questions about the missions on Reddit.com on Monday, Oct. 27 at 10 a.m. PDT.
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NASA’s extensive fleet of science assets, particularly those orbiting and roving Mars, have front row seats to image and study a once-in-a-lifetime comet flyby on Sunday, Oct. 19.
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Astronomers using data from three of NASA’s space telescopes — Hubble, Spitzer and Kepler — have discovered clear skies and steamy water vapor on a gaseous planet outside our solar system. The planet is about the size of Neptune, making it the smallest planet from which molecules of any kind have been detected.
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The image is a mosaic of “postage stamp” regions taken during the engineering test run this spring by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft operating in the two-wheel K2 mode. Highlighted in the image are two open clusters Messier 35 (top) and NGC 2158 (bottom).

The shape of the image is due to the fact that K2, like Kepler, only brings back “postage stamp” regions surrounding targets of interest. For single stars, the postage stamps are small, but for clusters, it is often the case that large super apertures are used and placed together to collect light in a large grouping of pixels, often of odd rectangular shapes, made to fit the sizes of the clusters.

Learn more about the K2 mission in the Kepler mission manager update.

Credit: NASA Ames/T Barclay/W Stenzel
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The K2 mission has successfully completed its first official science observations and the data are on the ground! Campaign 2 is underway.
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Two-wheel Kepler officially began conducting science observations on May 30 and performance as have spectacular.
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