Kepler sought for nine years to a habitable planet outside of our solar system, now space telescope was the world, as expected, the fuel. But the successor is on the way.
The goal of the Kepler Mission has changed since the Start in March 2009, never something: the space telescope of NASA should be found outside of our solar system, planet, about as large as the earth, which could potentially be habitable.
It was named after the German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), the beginning of the 17th century. Century had discovered the laws of planetary orbits. The 1039 kilograms in weight and nearly five metre high telescopic searched only a small part of our galaxy, the milky way.
It informed his views of a fixed neckline in the constellation of the Swan, in which there are around 190,000 star. Unlike the classic mirror Hubble telescope, Kepler uses a photometer to track the brightness of 100,000 stars simultaneously and to identify exoplanets. These are the planets that orbit outside of our solar system around a star.
The Mission should first of all take three and a half years. This nine years were, finally. In this time, the Kepler Mission has exceeded all expectations by far. Always pipe supplied the remote in All of the spectacular discoveries and findings. In the infinite reaches of space, Kepler has found thousands of distant planets. And also ten a new earth-like planets have astronomers from NASA so.
Search for a second earth
In order to be considered earth-like, classified, planet meet certain conditions: their mass and gravity must be something like that of our earth. In addition, the Planet must revolve around a sun or a star, that there is, at least theoretically, temperatures may occur that under which life is possible. A total of 50 earth-like planets are in our milky way now, thanks to Kepler known. It is not apparent, however, from the distance, whether the planets have an atmosphere.
The discovered Kepler425b-exoplanets similar to our earth the most
Beyond the planet-hunting sent Kepler a countless number of basic data on variable stars, which allow conclusions on the Internal processes. “Kepler get exceptional discoveries in the field of exoplanets, including several super-earths [planets whose mass is reached, the 1-and 14-fold of the earth] in the life zone,” said John Grunsfeld of the science Directorate of NASA already in 2013. Since the success promise has been extended to the end of a Mission just to up to four years.
Shortly thereafter, in may 2013, were, however, two reaction wheels on Kepler, the telescope could not be made with the necessary precision. NASA changed its method of Observation, and put Kepler in a resting state. From as little tax acquisitions nozzles, the location of control. With a minimum of fuel consumption, the sky eye should continue to seek – albeit significantly reduced – according to the exoplanet.
Probably Verdi’s Most Experienced Retirement
After approximately nine years, Kepler is expected to finally fuel. In the future, the space telescope to revolve in his orbit around the sun. “The time has come,” wrote NASA scientist Thomas Zurbuchen, the short message service Twitter. “Thank you, you’ve changed our views of the universe.”
Spectacular views into All of the science must not renounce but. In April 2018, a worthy successor to Kepler, was taken with the space telescope,”Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite” (TESS) on the way. TESS is about as big as a refrigerator and has four cameras, to find a large celestial body, or even small planets.
Worthy successor: space telescope TESS is already on the way
Like Kepler, the TESS telescope observed the light of certain stars. When it wears off shortly, it could mean that a Planet is pulled over. Here, TESS is able to cover a significantly larger area than Kepler.
To the first discoveries of the group show up on the earth, are able to evaluate the scientists, nor the incredible amount of data delivered by Kepler in the course of the nine years. Shortly before the beginning of his deserved retirement, the researchers were able to download even large volumes of data from Kepler.
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Hubble’s cosmic light swordBetter than Star Wars?
Just in time for the Start of the new Star Wars film, photographed by the Hubble telescope, about 1300 light-years away is a cosmic light sword. If you disregard the current Hype but on the outside, you see here the birth of a system of Stars, with little interstellar dust. Still nice, right? The space telescope makes always particularly fascinating recordings, such as the following pictures show.
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Hubble’s cosmic light swordEye in All
Since 1990, locking the Veteran in the world of space telescopes around the earth, 600 km altitude and a speed of approximately 28,000 kilometres per hour. Hubble is eleven meters long and weighs around eleven tons – that is about as big and as heavy as a Bus.
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Hubble’s cosmic light swordCosmic Bubble
A young, extremely hot stars has blown a huge ball of Gas. Hubble has helped the birth of stars and planets to educate, to determine the age of the universe and to investigate the mysterious Dark matter that drives the universe.
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Hubble’s cosmic light swordMystical Beings
The Carina nebula, one of the most important regions of Star birth in our galaxy. The colors on the stunning photo, are not only beautiful to look at, but reveal much about the chemical properties of the gases. Something for our eyes, the images are post-processed, however: Hubble’s Raw images are gray – expert then represent the information contained in tones.
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Hubble’s cosmic light swordVolatile Colors
This almost psychedelic colour scheme is formed by different gases. Red indicates sulfur, Green is hydrogen and Blue is oxygen.
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Hubble’s cosmic light swordHubble wears glasses
The very first photos of the Hubble telescope, however, were a disaster! Completely useless, because the 2.4-Meter primary mirror was incorrectly ground. In 1993 the space Shuttle Endeavour in the direction of the Hubble telescope launched. The telescope got a pair of glasses. A total of five operations were necessary, in order to wait for Hubble and refresh. Probably the last was held in may 2009.
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Hubble’s cosmic light swordKindergarten in All
This beautiful photo has been added to Hubble in December of 2009. The blue points are the very young star, just a couple of Milliönchen years old. This star nursery is located in the Large Magellanic cloud, a companion galaxy to our milky way.
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Hubble’s cosmic light swordButterfly
A snapshot of the All. No one knows what was photographed by the Hubble telescope. But it fires the imagination. These fragile appearance is one of 30,000 celestial objects, has captured Hubble for eternity.
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Hubble’s cosmic light swordHeavenly Disc
This – almost metaphysical – the photo is like most of the Hubble images are a composition of many individual images. The Sombrero galaxy lies in the constellation of Virgo and a mere 28 million light-years away from earth.
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Hubble’s cosmic light swordHubble was there really
The space telescope was named after U.S. astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953). He found that most galaxies were moving away from the Milchstaße. Thus he laid the foundations for the big Bang theory of modern Cosmology.
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Hubble’s cosmic light swordPillars of creation
These pillar-shaped Structures are located in the eagle nebula, about 7000 light-years away from us. They were taken by Hubble and under the name of “pillars of creation” known around the world.
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Hubble’s cosmic light swordWaiting In the wings
For a while the Hubble telescope should make it through. Through its ever-decreasing Orbit, it could be, however, that the telescope in 2024 and again in the earth’s atmosphere-entry and burn up in the atmosphere. The successor is already at the ready: the James Webb to be launched in 2018, his workplace is about one and a half million kilometers away from earth.
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Hubble’s cosmic light swordHappy Face
Until then, Hubble has still laugh good and provides, hopefully, a few more fascinating insights into space. This, incidentally, is his youngest snapshot, a Smiley in the universe. By created – simplified – bent light said.