Astronomy has been researched for thousands of years providing quantitative information about the physics of stars, the universe, galaxies and many other beings that are yet to be discovered currently today. Astronomy is a work of quantitative data, very philosophical as we theorize the existence of other planets in another universe. As our curiosity grows across time, our civilization build telescopes, discover new equations, and build astronomical equipment all in conclusion to grow technology. Our curiosity instinct has led us to Kepler’s mission and the impact this mission has made on the discovery of planets far beyond our reach. This mission has made an impact on the works of Astronomy and it gets us closer to our theory of worlds existing beyond our universe.
In order to comprehend the impact Kepler’s mission has had on astronomy we must understand Astronomy itself and how it works. Astronomy is the branch of science that deals with celestial objects, space, and the physical universe as a whole. It is a combination of math, physics, and chemistry with philosophical theories of the origins of phenomenas and how they have evolved over time. Astronomers, or scientist who study the work of astronomy, have an objective that includes the research of galaxies, planets, moons, stars and comets. They also incur information about game ray bursts and supernovas, these are phenomena within the galaxies that occur and are documented.
In conclusion, the study of Astronomy is the all the exterior phenomena beyond the atmosphere of earth. Astronomy is the work of thousands of scientist dating back thousands of years. It is one of the oldest natural sciences. It began with the earliest civilization dating back from the Greeks, Indians, Babylonians, Eqyptian’s, Irania’s, Chinese, the Mayan, and many other ancient indigenous. Because of all the data of recurring indigenous, Astronomy has been split into two branches better known as the observational branch and the theoretical branch. The observational is acquired data and analyzation. As for the theoretical branch is the development of models to describe phenomena and astronomical objects.
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The two fields interlock each other and are coexisting with each other. Theocratical discoveries cannot be explained without data of observational branches and vise versa. Astronomy is one of the few sciences that still discover new finding monthly, yearly, and even amateur astronomers can make important contributions to astronomical discoveries. We have so much to learn about the universe around us, and our data seems to indicate it is just a tad bit of what is truly out there. The truth is we have a lot to discover about our world and the worlds around us. So how does Kepler’s mission truly benefit Astronomy or how has it contributed to Astronomy at all?
Kepler’s mission started in May of 2009 and was intended to last about 3.5 years but the duration of Kepler’s mission was deactivated recently on October 30, 2018 and the discoveries were outstanding. Kepler is an observatory launched by NASA which is the National Aeronautics and space administration. This observatory object gets its name Kepler from an astronomer Johannes Kepler. Its intentions were to discover earth like planets that can potentially be orbiting other stars like the sun. Kepler began to survey the region of the milky way to discover earth size planets in near zones.
Kepler observes and monitors the brightness of approximately 150,000 main sequence stars in a field. Kepler contained a Schmidt camera. This camera was approximately the largest camera system launched into space. Kepler orbits the sun, which avoided the contact with earth or any stray light gravitational pulls coming from earth. Kepler was designed to “trail” earth as its orbitational period was of 373.5 days falling behind earths 365 days. Its orbit was simple it began deriving from earth to making a counter clock wise motion going farther and farther away from earth.
After the data is processed it is sent to earth to be analyzed. The discovery of Kepler’s observation ranges from 530,506 stars and detected about 2,662 planets in its 9 years of service. Although that might be one of the most captivating things Kepler has accomplished it is not the best. NASA is winding down on what might seem to be a world orbiting a start that is similar to our star the sun. “On 23 July, the Kepler team announced the existence of a planet 1.6 times the size of Earth, orbiting a Sun-like star 430 parsecs away (J. M. Jenkins et al. Astron. J. 150, 56, 2015).
The planet, named Kepler-452b, is in the habitable zone, orbiting its star at a distance where liquid water could exist. Team scientists say that there is a little more than a 50% chance that the planet is rocky, which would make it the closest thing to a true Earth analogue yet discovered.” ( Witze A, pg. 1, 2015) Kepler-452b is about the same age as earth and even its star is about the same of the sun (4.5 billion year old.) Kepler-452b may offer a glimpse of earths future as the earth like planet received less energy from the sun that it currently is now meaning that the star grows hotter and brighter that can potentially see the world drying out as Astronomers predict for earths future as well because of its natural evolution.
Kepler unfortunately came to an end after nine years of service as its telescopes reaction control system fuel was depleted and NASA announced its retirement on October 31, 2018. Kepler discoveries gave us an understanding on not only how many potential planets their can be on multiple universes but the potential of having a match similar to earth that can sustain life. However we have a lot yet to discover as planets are more than 1000 light-years away and our technology to travel to these planets is no where near here. Despite our discoveries Kepler gives us an understanding about what can potentially be out there and what may look like a whole lot of information is just a sensation of what can truly be out there.
References
- Botkin-Kowacki, Eva. ‘Engineering Feat from 75 Million Miles Aways Gets Kepler Back in Action.’ The Christian Science Monitor, Apr 11, 2016
- ‘Earth 2.0.’ Nature, vol. 470, no. 7332, 2011, pp. 5
- Witze, Alexandra. ‘Kepler Spies most Earth-Like Planet Yet.’ Nature, vol. 523, no. 7562, 2015, pp. 511.
