Recent Results From Nasa's Kepler Mission: Good Planets Are Hard to Find and Vice Versa

Dr. Jon Jenkins

Darwin 103
4:00 PM

Kepler vaulted into the heavens on March 6, 2009, initiating NASA's search for Earth-size planets orbiting Sun-like stars in the habitable zone, that range of distances for which liquid water would pool on the surface of a rocky planet. In the 1000+ days since Kepler began science operations, a flood of photometric data on upwards of 190,000 stars of unprecedented precision and continuity has provoked a watershed of 2300+ planetary candidates (most sub-Neptune in size and many comparable to or smaller than Earth). Dr. Jon Jenkins of the SETI Institute will expand on the resounding revolution in stellar asteroseismology the findings have caused.