Discoveries from the Kepler Mission

PLANET HUNTERS DISCOVERIES FROM THE KEPLER MISSION PRODUCER/DESIGN: OLENA SULLIVAN the nature of things WITH DAVID SUZUKI NASA'S Kepler Mission (NASA Discovery Mission #10) was designed to survey a portion of the Milky Way Galaxy to discover Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone and determine how many of the billion stars in our galaxy have such planets. A PLANET CAN MAINTAIN LI QUID WATER ON ITs SURFACE REGION AROUND A STAR WITHIN WHICH HABITABLE ZONE 50% of nearby stars that do not have flare or spot activity wiil have planets. There are more small rocky planets (like Earth) than large gas planets. In 2011, astronomers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) estimated that between 1.4%-2.7% of all sun-like stars are expected to have Earth-size planets within the habitable zone. THE STARRY MILKY WAY GALAXY A spiral galaxy like the Milky Way has 3 basic visible components: There are 100 billion to 400 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy. the halo the Milky Way galaxy is 100,000-120,000 light-years in diameter 3 central bulge the disk (containing the spiral arms) There are giant galaxies which contain even more stars than our Milky Way. Andromeda galaxy 1 trillion stars MILLION 10° BILLION 10° TRILLION 1012 QUADRILLION 1015 QUINTILLION 1018 TOTAL NUMBER OF STARS* 300 SEXTILLION 1021 *estimate for observable universe SEPTILLION 1024 OCTILLION 1027 Using the low end of JPL's estimate, there would be 4.2 sextillion habitable NONILLION 1030 DECILLION 1033 planets. UNDECILLION 1036 70% of all stars in our galaxy are red dwarfs A red dwarf is much smaller, cooler and dimmer than our Sun making its habitable zone closer. This; makes its planets easier to detect. JUST THINK OF THE POSSIBILITIES... IF ONLY 1% of red dwarfs have IF 1 IN A MILLION Earth-size planets Earth-size planets were also Earth-like in their habitable and habitable there zones that would mean would still be a possible 200 TRILLION more than All of this amazing information discovered 2 BILLION TRILLION Earth-size planets places to live in the by the Kepler space- based telescope, known as a photometer. in the known universe. universe. "...the ways by which men arrive at knowledge of the celestial things are hardly less wonderful than the nature of these things themselves." - Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) Learn more about planets @ CBC.CA/NATUREOFTHINGS Images: Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech, nasaimages.org, and the Ames Research Centre. NOTE: Planets not to scale.