kepler tagged posts

Astronomers have discovered a third planet in the Kepler-47 system, securing the system’s title as the most interesting of the binary-star worlds. Using data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, a team of researchers, led by astronomers at San Diego State University, detected the new Neptune-to-Saturn-size planet orbiting between two previously known planets.

With its three planets orbiting two suns, Kepler-47 is the only known multi-planet circumbinary system. Circumbinary planets are those that orbit two stars.

The planets in the Kepler-47 system were detected via the “transit method...

Space Observatory Captures the Details of an Unusual Stellar Detonation

The universe is full of mysterious exploding phenomena that go boom in the dark. One particular type of ephemeral event, called a Fast-Evolving Luminous Transient (FELT), has bewildered astronomers for a decade because of its very brief duration. Now, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope—designed to go hunting for planets across our galaxy—has also been used to catch FELTs in the act and determine their nature. They appear to be a new kind of supernova that gets a brief turbo boost in brightness from its surroundings.

Kepler’s ability to precisely sample sudden changes in starlight has allowed astronomers to quickly arrive at this model for explaining FELTs, and rule out alternative explanations...

Artist’s impression of a “hot Jupiter”. Credit: Ricardo Cardoso Reis (CAUP)

Astronomers have detected “hot Jupiter” exoplanets transiting two distant stars. The newly found alien worlds, designated EPIC 229426032 b and EPIC 246067459 b, appear to be larger than it should be according to theoretical models. The finding is reported January 24 in a paper published on arXiv.org. The so-called inflated planets are those that expand in size when their parent stars are at the end of their lives. They have been known to astronomers for almost two decades, but it is still unclear what causes the inflation processes...