The Kepler telescope "We won't find E.T., but we might find E.T.'s home"

NASA launched its Kepler spacecraft just before 11 p.m. Friday in a mission that the agency says may fundamentally change humanity's view of itself.

The Kepler spacecraft blasted into space on top of a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The telescope will search our corner of the Milky Way galaxy for Earth-like planets.

"This is a historical mission. It's not just a science mission," NASA Associate Administrator Ed Weiler said during a prelaunch news conference.

"It really attacks some very basic human questions that have been part of our genetic code since that first man or woman looked up in the sky and asked the question: Are we alone?"

Kepler contains a special telescope that will stare at 100,000 stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the Milky Way for more than three years as it trails Earth's orbit around the Sun.

The spacecraft will look for tiny dips in a star's brightness, which can mean an orbiting planet is passing in front of it -- an event called a transit.

The instrument is so precise that it can register changes in brightness of 20 parts per million in stars that are thousands of light years away.

"Being able to make that kind of a sensitive measurement over a very large number of stars was extremely challenging," Kepler project manager James Fanson said.

"So we're very proud of the vehicle we have built. This is a crowning achievement for NASA and a monumental step in our search for other worlds around other stars."

"We won't find E.T., but we might find E.T.'s home," said William Borucki, science principal investigator for the Kepler mission.

Moon Rays, Milky Ways, and Prominences

On September 7th, the first quarter Moon and passing clouds contributed to a dramatic night sky over the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory. This panoramic view begins at the left looking toward the eastern horizon and the rising stars of the constellation Perseus. Sweeping your gaze to the right (south), you'll find the large observatory dome, housing a 2.6 meter diameter telescope, backlit by lights from nearby Yerevan, capital city of Armenia. Fittingly poised above the observatory dome is the bright, giant star Enif in the high-flying constellation Pegasus. Farther to the right, the brightest celestial beacon just above the clouds is our Solar System's ruling gas giant Jupiter. At the far right, the Moon is nearly hidden by an approaching cloudbank, but the clouds themselves actually cast shadows in the bright moonlight, creating the effect of Moon rays across the evening sky.


Is there any place in the world you could see a real sight like this? Yes. Pictured above is single exposure image spectacular near, far, and in between. Diving into the Earth far in the distance is part of the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy, taken with a long duration exposure. Much closer, the planet Jupiter is visible as the bright point just to band's left. Closer still are picturesque buttes and mesas of the Canyonlands National Park in Utah, USA, lit by a crescent moon. In the foreground is a cave housing a stone circle of unknown origin named False Kiva. The cave was briefly lit by flashlight during the long exposure. Astrophotographer Wally Pacholka reports that getting to the cave to take this image was no easy trek. Also, mountain lions were a concern while waiting alone in the dark for just the right exposure


On September 29, this magnificent eruptive solar prominence lifted away from the Sun's surface, unfurling into space over the course of several hours. Suspended in twisted magnetic fields, the hot plasma structure is many times the size of planet Earth and was captured in this view by the Sun-watching STEREO (Ahead) spacecraft. The image was recorded in extreme ultraviolet light emitted by ionized Helium, an element originally identified in the solar spectrum. Seen against the brilliant solar surface in visible light, such prominences appear as dark filaments because they are relatively cool. But they are bright themselves when viewed against the blackness of space, arcing above the Sun's edge.

Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées

Engerineered

Sometimes its not just the fantastic images from space and science that amaze. Sometimes it's the devices man has build to see and explore that amaze also. Click to enlarge.

1.Why do objects have mass? To help find out, Europe's CERN has built the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator yet created by humans. Pictured above, a person stands in front of the huge ATLAS detector, one of six detectors being attached to the LHC.

2. An intricate network of lighting plays across the 130 foot high Rotating Service Structure (RSS) in this dramatic night view of the Space Shuttle Atlantis on the Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A. Small human figures visible in silhouette emphasize the structure's enormous scale.

3. The imposing structure in the foreground houses the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), on Mount Graham, Arizona. Inside, the two 8.4 meter diameter mirrors of the LBT really are side-by-side on a common mount, an arrangement mimicking the design of more modest optical equipment usually carried around the neck. While not exactly portable, the benefits of the large scale binocular configuration adopted include an increase in sensitivity over a single mirror telescope and high resolution imaging for faint objects over a relatively wide field of view.

4. The International Space Station (ISS) has been equipped with a powerful new scientific laboratory. The Space Shuttle Atlantis delivered the Columbus Laboratory to the ISS and installed the seven meter long module over the past week. Columbus has ten racks for experiments that can be controlled from the station or the Columbus Control Center in Germany. The first set of experiments includes the Fluid Science Laboratory that will explore fluid properties in the microgravity of low Earth orbit, and Biolab which supports experiments on microorganisms. Future Columbus experiments include an atomic clock that will test minuscule timing effects including those expected by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.

Star Wars

Don't panic! This isn't the start of an intergalactic war from Earth.

This fantastic photo was taken from an observatory in Chile. The laser is measuring the density of particles in our upper atmosphere.

Sure looks cool, though!

:)

Above the clouds

Another day, another cool photo. Comet Mcnaught see in the sky above an observatory in Hawaii.
Nice!!!

So close, but yet...

Came 11th in the local poker tournament. It started paying out at 9th!! So close. Oh well. Lucky to be there. Was down and nearly out at one point. I was in for 1600 and I only had 1500 left. Someone put me all-in. With less than a blinds worth of chips left I called in the dark (not having looked at my cards). He turned over Ace Queen hearts. A very strong hand. I turned over two Aces!! What a time for them. Anyway that gave me enough chips to last to eleventh. So close...

Here is a beautiful picture of the Moon rising over an observatory in Chile.

As Boart might say

Niiiiice!

Home

So how will we know if we have found life?

Scientists can tell the composition of a planets atmosphere by how light is refracted by it. Different chemicals refract light differently. They call it spectromentry. If a planet had an oxygen atmosphere, or if there was methene in the atmosphere (from living creatures), it would have a distinctive signature that would be readable through a spectrograph.

Knowing this, the good folks at NASA figured they had a good idea what Earth should look like. When they launched the first probe they sent that had a spectrograph on it, they pointed it back at Earth.

It looked just how they thought it would.

Now all astonomers are searching for a new Holy Grail, a planet that has the distinct signature of a planet that carrys Life.

:)