Stellar Engineering by Greg Matloff & C Bangs

Author:Greg Matloff & C Bangs
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780993400292
Publisher: Curtis Press
Published: 2019-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 8.1.The light curve of a planet transiting in front of its star.

Courtesy: NASA

An observable transit requires a close alignment between the Earth’s solar orbit and the orbital plane of the extra-solar planet. Only a small fraction of planetary systems will be aligned just right. So to do a statistical survey using the transit system of the frequency and varieties of planetary systems, it is necessary to observe a large number of stars.

THE SPACECRAFT

NASA elected to dedicate the 10th mission in its Discovery series to apply the transit method to survey more than 100,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra. Dubbed Kepler, the science goals of this space observatory were to determine the percentage of extra-solar planets in or near their stars’ habitable zones, determine the orbital characteristics of these planets, estimate planet distribution in multiple-star systems, and categorize the properties of planet-bearing stars.

Kepler, with an approximate mass of 1,000 kilograms, was launched from Cape Canaveral by a Delta II rocket on March 7, 2009 (Figure 8.2). The craft was placed in a near-Earth heliocentric orbit with a period of 372.5 days

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.