Handicapped Kepler Telescope Stuns All, Identifies Super Earth in Distant Constellation
Just when it was about to be written off as junk floating in space, the Kepler telescope has sprung to life by detecting a Super Earth about 180 light years away.
"Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Kepler has been reborn and is continuing to make discoveries. Even better, the planet it found is ripe for follow-up studies," lead author Andrew Vanderburg of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), said in a news release.
The telescope set off on a mission to identify distant Earth like planets in 2009. Before technical snags reduced its abilities in May 2013, Kepler identified more than 900 planets along with three thousand possible candidates. Last year, one of the four reaction wheels which help the telescope maintain its orientation failed, hindering Kepler from carrying out its work, Space.com reported.
According to The New York Times, earlier this year a team of researchers at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics could successfully used the telescope to detect the planet HIP 116454 which is two and half times the size of Earth but 12 times as massive. The planet was noticed as a blink when it cut across the telescope's view on its orbit. The telescope was innovatively fixed by using sunlight pressure substitute the failed reaction wheel.
"HIP 116454b will be a top target for telescopes on the ground and in space," said co-author John Johnson.
To compensate for any loss of function, the team developed sophisticated software to interpret data from the telescope. Thanks to their efforts, Kepler can now view other cosmic events besides its intended mission of identified planets.
