The Kepler Mission, NASA Discovery mission #10, is specifically designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover hundreds of Earth-size and smaller planets in or near the habitable zone and determine how many of the billions of stars in our galaxy have such planets. The KIC, or Kepler Input Catalog, is the primary source of information about objects observed as part of the ground-based Kepler Spectral Classification Program (SCP) in preparation for the selection of Kepler PI and GO targets. The KIC lists objects down to 21mag, but it is not complete to this limit. Light from only about 1/3 of these objects falls on the Kepler CCD detector. A small number of the KIC objects are calibration objects distributed across the sky. For this reason the full KIC should never be used for Kepler target selection.
The KIC, or Kepler Input Catalog, is the primary source of information about objects observed as part of the ground-based Kepler Spectral Classification Program (SCP) in preparation for the selection of Kepler PI and GO targets. The KIC lists objects down to 21st magnitude, but it is not complete to this limit. Light from only about 1/3 of these 14 million objects falls on the Kepler CCD detector. A small number of the KIC objects are calibration objects distributed across the sky.
Launched in 2009, the Kepler Mission is surveying a region of our galaxy to determine what fraction of stars
in our galaxy have planets and measure the size distribution of those exoplanets.
Although Kepler completed its primary mission to determine the fraction of stars that have planets in 2013,
it is continuing the search, using a more limited survey mode, under the new name K2.
The K2 Data Search Service provides the main catalog for all K2 data.
Launched in 2009, the Kepler Mission is surveying a region of our galaxy to determine what fraction of stars
in our galaxy have planets and measure the size distribution of those exoplanets.
Although Kepler completed its primary mission to determine the fraction of stars that have planets in 2013,
it is continuing the search, using a more limited survey mode, under the new name K2.
The K2 Ecliptic Plane Input Catalog is the primary source of information about
objects observed as potential targets for the K2 mission, as the Kepler Input Catalog was used for the original Kepler mission.
Kepler K2 mission fields 3-5: radio continuum survey
Short Name:
J/AJ/158/31
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
We present Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) monitoring of the Kepler K2 mission fields 3, 4, and 5 at frequencies of 155 and 186 MHz, from observations contemporaneous with the K2 observations. This work follows from previous MWA and Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) surveys of field 1, with the current work benefiting from a range of improvements in the data processing and analysis. We continue to build a body of systematic low-frequency blind surveys overlapping with transient/variable survey fields at other wavelengths, providing multiwavelength data for object classes such as flare stars. From the current work, we detect no variable objects at a surface density above 2x10^-4^ per square degree, at flux densities of ~500 mJy, and an observation cadence of days to weeks, representing almost an order of magnitude decrease in the measured upper limits compared to previous results in this part of observational parameter space. This continues to show that radio transients at meter and centimeter wavelengths are rare.
HARPS-N spectra with S/N>250 and MARCS model atmospheres were used to derive abundances of C, O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Ti, Cr, Fe, Ni, Zn, and Y in ten stars from the Kepler LEGACY sample including the binary pair 16 Cyg A and B. Stellar gravities and ages were obtained from seismic data and effective temperatures were determined by comparing non-LTE iron abundances derived from FeI and FeII lines. Available non-LTE corrections were also applied when deriving abundances of the other elements.
Various properties of Jovian Trojan asteroids such as composition, rotation periods, and photometric amplitudes, or the rate of binarity in the population, can provide information and constraints on the evolution of the group and of the solar system itself. Here we present new photometric properties of 45 Jovian Trojans from the K2 mission of the Kepler space telescope, and present phase-folded light curves for 44 targets, including (11351) Leucus, one of the targets of the Lucy mission. We extend our sample to 101 asteroids with previous K2 Trojan measurements, then compare their combined amplitude and frequency distributions to other ground-based and space data. We show that there is a dichotomy in the periods of Trojans with a separation at ~100hr. We find that 25% of the sample are slow rotators (P>=30hr), an excess that can be attributed to binary objects. We also show that 32 systems can be classified as potential detached binary systems. Finally, we calculate density and rotation constraints for the asteroids. Both the spin barrier and fits to strengthless ellipsoid models indicate low densities and thus compositions similar to populations of comets and trans-Neptunian objects throughout the sample. This supports the scenario of outer solar system origin for Jovian Trojans.
Flare research is becoming a burgeoning realm of interest in the study of stellar activity due to the launch of Kepler in 2009. Kepler provides data with two time resolutions, i.e., the long-cadence (LC) data with a time resolution of 30 minutes and the short-cadence (SC) data with a time resolution of 1 minute, both of which can be used to study stellar flares. In this paper, we search flares in light curves with both LC data and SC data, and compare them in aspects of the true-flare rate, the flare energy, the flare amplitude, and the flare duration. It is found that LC data systematically underestimated the energies of flares by 25%, and underestimated the amplitudes of flares by 60% compared with SC flares. The durations are systematically overestimated by 50% compared with SC flares. However, the above percentages are poorly constrained and there is a lot of scatter. About 60% of SC flares have not been detected by LC data. We investigate the limitation of LC data, and suggest that although LC data cannot reflect the detailed profiles of flares, they can also capture the basic properties of stellar flares.
We classified the reddest (r-J>2.2) stars observed by the NASA Kepler mission into main-sequence dwarf or evolved giant stars and determined the properties of 4216 M dwarfs based on a comparison of available photometry with that of nearby calibrator stars, as well as available proper motions and spectra. We revised the properties of candidate transiting planets using the stellar parameters, high-resolution imaging to identify companion stars, and, in the case of binaries, fitting light curves to identify the likely planet host. In 49 of 54 systems, we validated the primary as the host star. We inferred the intrinsic distribution of M dwarf planets using the method of iterative Monte Carlo simulation. We compared several models of planet orbital geometry and clustering and found that one where planets are exponentially distributed and almost precisely coplanar best describes the distribution of multiplanet systems. We determined that Kepler M dwarfs host an average of 2.2+/-0.3 planets with radii of 1-4R_{Earth}_ and orbital periods of 1.5-180d. The radius distribution peaks at ~1.2R_{Earth}_ and is essentially zero at 4R_{Earth}_, although we identify three giant planet candidates other than the previously confirmed Kepler-45b. There is suggestive but not significant evidence that the radius distribution varies with orbital period. The distribution with logarithmic orbital period is flat except for a decline for orbits less than a few days. 12 candidate planets, including two Jupiter-size objects, experience an irradiance below the threshold level for a runaway greenhouse on an Earth-like planet and are thus in a 'habitable zone'.
The Kepler space mission is devoted to finding Earth-size planets orbiting other stars in their habitable zones. Its large, 105deg^2^ field of view features over 156,000 stars that are observed continuously to detect and characterize planet transits. Yet, this high-precision instrument holds great promise for other types of objects as well. Here we present a comprehensive catalog of eclipsing binary stars observed by Kepler in the first 44 days of operation, the data being publicly available through MAST as of 2010 June 15. The catalog contains 1879 unique objects.