NASA's Kepler telescope is ready to Launch

NASA's Kepler mission to seek other Earth-like planets is undergoing final preparations for liftoff Friday, March 6, from Pad 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The spacecraft launch aboard a Delta II rocket has two windows of opportunity.

Kepler is designed to find the first Earth-size planets orbiting stars in habitable zones -- regions where water could pool on the surface of the planets. Liquid water is believed to be essential for the formation of life.

"This mission attempts to answer a question that is as old as time itself -- are other planets like ours out there?" said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

After the clock ticks down to liftoff, the Delta II's first-stage main engine and six strap-on solid rocket boosters will ignite. Three remaining boosters will ignite 65.5 seconds later, and the first-stage main engine will continue to burn for 4.5 minutes. The second stage will then ignite, carrying Kepler into a circular orbit 115 miles above Earth less than 10 minutes after launch. After coasting for 43 minutes, the second-stage engine will fire again, followed by second-stage shutdown and separation. The third stage will then burn for five minutes.

Sixty-two minutes after launch Kepler will have separated entirely from its rocket and will be in its final Earth-trailing orbit around the sun, an orbit similar to that of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. "We are very excited to see this magnificent spacecraft come to life when it reaches space," said James Fanson, Kepler project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

After a commissioning period lasting about two months, Kepler will begin its job of staring at more than 100,000 stars for three-and-one-half years, looking for planets. Its isolated perch behind Earth will give the telescope an unobstructed view of a single, very large patch of sky near the Cygnus and Lyra constellations.

"We will monitor a wide range of stars; from small cool ones, where planets must circle closely to stay warm, to stars bigger and hotter than the sun, where planets must stay well clear to avoid being roasted," said William Borucki, science principal investigator for the mission at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. Borucki has been working on the mission for 17 years. "Everything about the mission is optimized to find Earth-size planets with the potential for life, to help us answer the question -- are Earths bountiful or is our planet unique?"

Kepler will find planets by looking for periodic dips in starlight. Planets that happen to pass directly in front of their stars from Earth's point of view cause the stars to dim by almost imperceptible amounts. Kepler's powerful camera, the largest ever flown in space, can see the faintest of these "winks."

"Trying to detect Jupiter-size planets crossing in front of their stars is like trying to measure the effect of a mosquito flying by a car's headlight," said Fanson. "Finding Earth-sized planets is like trying to detect a very tiny flea in that same headlight."

If the mission does find Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of stars, it should find them first around stars that are smaller than our sun. This is because the habitable zone is closer for small stars; planets circling in this region would take less time to complete one lap and, theoretically, less time for Kepler to find them and for other ground-telescopes to confirm their existence. Any Earth-size planets orbiting in the habitable zones of stars like our sun -- the true Earth analogs -- would take at least three years to be confirmed.

Kepler is a NASA Discovery mission. Ames is the home organization of the science principal investigator and is responsible for the ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., is responsible for developing the Kepler flight system and supporting mission operations

NASA's Kepler telescope is ready to Launch

NASA's Kepler mission to seek other Earth-like planets is undergoing final preparations for liftoff Friday, March 6, from Pad 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The spacecraft launch aboard a Delta II rocket has two windows of opportunity.

Kepler is designed to find the first Earth-size planets orbiting stars in habitable zones -- regions where water could pool on the surface of the planets. Liquid water is believed to be essential for the formation of life.

"This mission attempts to answer a question that is as old as time itself -- are other planets like ours out there?" said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

After the clock ticks down to liftoff, the Delta II's first-stage main engine and six strap-on solid rocket boosters will ignite. Three remaining boosters will ignite 65.5 seconds later, and the first-stage main engine will continue to burn for 4.5 minutes. The second stage will then ignite, carrying Kepler into a circular orbit 115 miles above Earth less than 10 minutes after launch. After coasting for 43 minutes, the second-stage engine will fire again, followed by second-stage shutdown and separation. The third stage will then burn for five minutes.

Sixty-two minutes after launch Kepler will have separated entirely from its rocket and will be in its final Earth-trailing orbit around the sun, an orbit similar to that of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. "We are very excited to see this magnificent spacecraft come to life when it reaches space," said James Fanson, Kepler project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

After a commissioning period lasting about two months, Kepler will begin its job of staring at more than 100,000 stars for three-and-one-half years, looking for planets. Its isolated perch behind Earth will give the telescope an unobstructed view of a single, very large patch of sky near the Cygnus and Lyra constellations.

"We will monitor a wide range of stars; from small cool ones, where planets must circle closely to stay warm, to stars bigger and hotter than the sun, where planets must stay well clear to avoid being roasted," said William Borucki, science principal investigator for the mission at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. Borucki has been working on the mission for 17 years. "Everything about the mission is optimized to find Earth-size planets with the potential for life, to help us answer the question -- are Earths bountiful or is our planet unique?"

Kepler will find planets by looking for periodic dips in starlight. Planets that happen to pass directly in front of their stars from Earth's point of view cause the stars to dim by almost imperceptible amounts. Kepler's powerful camera, the largest ever flown in space, can see the faintest of these "winks."

"Trying to detect Jupiter-size planets crossing in front of their stars is like trying to measure the effect of a mosquito flying by a car's headlight," said Fanson. "Finding Earth-sized planets is like trying to detect a very tiny flea in that same headlight."

If the mission does find Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of stars, it should find them first around stars that are smaller than our sun. This is because the habitable zone is closer for small stars; planets circling in this region would take less time to complete one lap and, theoretically, less time for Kepler to find them and for other ground-telescopes to confirm their existence. Any Earth-size planets orbiting in the habitable zones of stars like our sun -- the true Earth analogs -- would take at least three years to be confirmed.

Kepler is a NASA Discovery mission. Ames is the home organization of the science principal investigator and is responsible for the ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., is responsible for developing the Kepler flight system and supporting mission operations

Albert Einstein's telescope to know the universe

Scientists are using the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, which they call "Einstein's telescope", as a scientific "instrument" in their quest to determine the makeup of the universe.

The University of Chicago's Evalyn Gates's new book, "Einstein's Telescope: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe", explains how it works. Although based on Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, the effect is easily demonstrated.

"Einstein's telescope is using the universe itself as a lens through which we can seek out galaxies that would otherwise be too faint to be seen," said Gates, Assistant Director of the University's Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics.

Long ago, Einstein recognized the potential existence of gravitational lensing, a consequence of his theory of general relativity. According to general relativity, celestial objects create dimples in space-time that bend the light traveling from behind.

Einstein realized that the gravitational influence of a foreground star could theoretically bend the light of another star sitting almost directly far beyond it, producing two images of the background star. "Gravitational lensing magnifies things as well as making multiple images and distorting the shape of images, so you can actually use it as a magnifying glass," Gates explained.

But, assuming that the effect would be too weak to detect, Einstein immediately dismissed its significance. Astronomers now use gravitational lensing to look for dark matter and the imprint of dark energy, two of the greatest modern scientific mysteries.

"We can't see dark energy directly by any means, but we're looking for how it has sculpted the matter distribution of the universe over the past few billion years, since it's been the dominant factor, and also how it has affected the rate at which the Universe is expanding," Gates said.

Gravitational lensing is essentially the only method astronomers have for tracing out the web of dark matter that pervades the Universe, and determining how dark energy has impacted the evolution of this web. "Gravitational lensing is going to allow us to image the universe in ways that wouldn't have been possible even 50 years ago. It may lead us to another revolution in our understanding of the most fundamental aspects of the universe, time, matter, and energy.