Exploring Distant Worlds using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration space telescope Kepler is currently revolutionising planetary and stellar astrophysics through the detection of thousands of new extrasolar planets and oscillating stars. This project will use Kepler data to measure oscillations in exoplanet host stars, detect new planets around red-giant stars and improve our understanding of all stars observed by Kepler. The results are expected to yield the first precisely measured radius of an Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone around a Sun-like star, lead to breakthrough discoveries in the theory of the formation and composition of gas-giant planets and result in the first accurate estimate of the frequency of Earth-like planets in our galaxy.