Boing Boing » kepler

Kepler's greatest hits

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:48:13 +0000

Your guide to the most awesome exoplanets yet found by NASA's Kepler space telescope — all in one handy place, thanks to Wired's Adam Mann.

Kepler space telescope discovers a BEER planet

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:21:59 +0000

Before you get excited, please note that said planet is not actually made of beer. In fact, it's probably a gas giant, like Jupiter, only way hotter owing to the fact that it sits much closer to its own sun. BEER, in this case, is a somewhat tortured acronym for "relativistic BEaming, Ellipsoidal, and Reflection/emission modulations", a new method of finding exoplanets that could help us spot worlds we might otherwise have missed. Ian O'Neill explains at Discovery.com.

Kepler 62, a planetary system like our own

Rob Beschizza — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:19:59 +0000

Two of the five planets seen circling a distant star may be capable of supporting life, reports the team operating the Kepler Space Telescope. Relatively close to Earth's size and within their sun's habitable zone, the worlds—1200 light years away—are the most tantalizing yet in a search that began in 2009. [The Atlantic]

My night with the International Space Orchestra: Jasmina Tesanovic

Jasmina Tesanovic — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:49:27 +0000

The International Space Orchestra in front of Vacuum Chambers, NASA Ames Research Center. Photo: Neil Berrett.

I never dreamed I would be in a NASA base in California, singing and playing music.

The Ground Control Opera performance by Nelly Ben Hayoun, presented the International Space Orchestra, 50 local technicians and scientists, playing in the city of San Jose at the Zero1 Biennial 2012. The opera reenacts the first minutes of Neil Armstrong's landing on the Moon. It's dedicated to the memory of the recently gone cosmonauts and astronauts, and the endeavors of scientists at ground-control stations, still trying to make our 20th century dreams of spaceflight come true.

My daughter asked me when she mis-heard that I was singing for "NASA": Mom why are you singing to "NATO?" NATO bombed us in Serbia in 1999! I said my dear this is NASA, not NATO, they have planes and rockets but not bombers and missiles! They are searching for habitable planets with the Kepler space probe! Maybe there are other space controllers somewhere out there!

We've never yet settled alien planets, but maybe Silicon Valley will do. Tthe topic of this years art and science biennial is "Seeking Silicon Valley." The show was curated by five women from Korea, Brazil, Germany, Canada, and California.

The Zero1 event brought in thirty pieces of art/installations: Cell phones were methodically smashed in one installation, toasters made out of stone appeared in another, books made of internet addresses in yet another one. You could be hugged breathless by a smart chair, have your face virtually eaten by a mushroom while imagining your grave… You could play with an enormous inflated bubble which would cover you with charcoal smears -- pleasant to interact with, like a giant pet.

This art event connected to local happenings on the ground in sprawling San Jose, the self proclaimed "Capital of Silicon Valley." Silicon Valley, by its nature, is hyper realistic, inflated, shiny, soulless and somewhat scary. Unlike cities elsewhere, a perfect but lonely machine. The morning after the show and party, the Sunday sun was scorching the homeless derelicts in the emptied streets of San Jose... nobody else to be seen there.

In the conceptual essay of Gisela Domschke, one of the curators of the show, we were asked to express our ideas and feelings about the Silicon Valley.

Alessandro Ludovico: a place whose virtual importance transcend its real presence. Marcus Bastos: the counterculture ethos which shaped work environments in todays major corporations. Bruce Sterling: when will Californians realize that their gold rushes always finish ugly? Marisa Olson: I remember a picture in black and white: a handsome young visionary sitting lotus-like alone on the floor of what appears to be a large home: empty save for what appears to be a lamp!

Yes, Steve Jobs is gone now but the iPhone 5 is about to show up, here in the capital of Silicon Valley. People are already queuing to pay and play; like some mystical 13th nomadic tribe of unknown ethnic origin. The virtuals are here, like a horde of a million astronauts -- what souls do they have, what dreams?

Two stars, one planet

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 18:26:41 +0000

Stream videos at Ustream

The Kepler space telescope has found a new, fun discovery that promises years of great Star Wars jokes. Kepler-16b is a planet that represents a type of system we've never seen before—at least, in the real world. Two hundred light years away, this Saturn-size ball of rock and gas is orbiting two stars at once. Yes, just like Tatooine.

Only, not really. Because Kepler 16b's stars are a bit on the dim side. Here's how Phil Plait explains it:

And while there are two stars involved in heating the planet, their light is pretty feeble. Even at its distance of a little over 100 million kilometers (65 million miles) from the pair — roughly the same distance at which Venus orbits the Sun — Kepler-16b is cold: the temperature at its cloud tops (assuming it’s a gas giant like Saturn) would be at best -70°C (-100°F).

So any visions you have of Luke Skywalker standing in the desert with his leg resting on a rock while he wistfully watches the two suns set in the west may have to wait. Even if the planet has a big moon (which these observations cannot yet detect) conditions there would be a bit chillier than on Tatooine. More like Hoth.

The video above is a stream of the Kepler 16b press conference. You can also find that video online at this link.