Kepler, reborn as K2, continues hunt for exoplanets
After seven years in space, the Kepler telescope is getting a second act, conducting a mission known as K2 Second Light.
Launched in March 2009, the Kepler space observatory was originally expected to last up to four years. It's mission: cataloging planets outside of our solar system, known as exoplanets, particularly those orbiting within their stars' habitable zones.
Kepler typically seeks planet candidates by watching for their stars to dim as the bodies transit in front of them. Through this process, and several secondary verification methods, Kepler has with more than 4,000 potential candidates as well.
Kepler has had its fair share of setbacks, as well. The data gathered by the spacecraft turned out to be unexpectedly noisy, forcing scientists to prolong the mission timeline. In July 2012, one of Kepler's four reaction wheels broke down. Less than a year later, another wheel malfunctioned, making it a challenge to rotate and orient the craft. Many scientists concluded that Kepler鈥檚 mission had have run its course.
But even after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) decided not to fix the wheels, the agency was able to in 2014 with the help of Ball Aerospace engineers, using sunlight to balance the telescope.
鈥淢any of us believed that the spacecraft would be saved, but this was perhaps more blind faith than insight,鈥� said Tom Barclay, senior research scientist for the Kepler program. 鈥淭he Ball team devised an ingenious solution .鈥�
Now, two years after Kepler鈥檚 rebirth as K2, the exoplanet hunt continues. K2 has been responsible for the discovery of outside of the solar system, including several of the most Earth-like planets found to date including聽.
鈥淲e are seeing an explosion of scientific interest in the K2 mission, with a new generation of researchers coming to the forefront,鈥� wrote NASA鈥檚 Charlie Sobeck, the Kepler and K2 mission manager, in an agency release last week. 鈥淎lready K2 is starting to make a significant contribution to the number of exoplanets known, and is finding them closer to home than those discovered by Kepler, and around brighter stars that provide enough light to make them candidates for probing their atmospheres. .鈥�
In addition to its ongoing exoplanet discovery operations, K2 has been responsible for several other updates to astrophysical theories. Data collected from its scope has contributed to the study of stellar and planetary formation models and given new insight into the 鈥渄ynamics of our planetary system,鈥� says Mr. Barclay.
K2鈥檚 next chance to shine will come this April when the space observatory participates in a worldwide observation experiment as a part of its . Along with terrestrial observatories around the globe, K2 will look through (a view from Earth with relatively low interstellar dust) to the center of the Milky Way in an attempt to image exoplanets using gravitational microlensing; focusing on potential planets' gravitational distorting effect on light coming from sources behind them.
After that operation concludes this July, K2 has one more scheduled campaign set to end in September. But after the telescope鈥檚 surprising second wind, and with more than two years of fuel left in its tank, it is likely K2 will continue the until at least 2018.
鈥淲e have come a long way in the last 20 years, and with Kepler鈥檚 success we are riding the K2 mission into new territory,鈥� Mr. Sobeck wrote.
