April 16, 2009

J D Harrington Headquarters, Washington 202-358-5241 j d harrington@nasa gov

Whitney Clavin Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif 818-354-4673 whitney clavin@jpl nasa gov

Michael Mewhinney Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif 650-604-3937 michael s mewhinney@nasa gov

RELEASE: 09-085

NASA'S KEPLER CAPTURES FIRST VIEWS OF PLANET-HUNTING TERRITORY

PASADENA, Calif -- NASA's Kepler mission has taken its first images of the star-rich sky where it will soon begin hunting for planets like Earth

The new "first light" images show the mission's target patch of sky, a vast starry field in the Cygnus-Lyra region of our Milky Way galaxy One image shows millions of stars in Kepler's full field of view, while two others zoom in on portions of the larger region The images can be seen online at:

http://www nasa gov/mission_pages/kepler/multimedia/20090416 html

"Kepler's first glimpse of the sky is awe-inspiring," said Lia LaPiana, Kepler's program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington "To be able to see millions of stars in a single snapshot is simply breathtaking "

One new image from Kepler shows its entire field of view -- a 100-square-degree portion of the sky, equivalent to two side-by-side dips of the Big Dipper The regions contain an estimated 14 millions stars, more than 100,000 of which were selected as ideal candidates for planet hunting

Two other views focus on just one-thousandth of the full field of view In one image, a cluster of stars located about 13,000 light-years from Earth, called NGC 6791, can be seen in the lower left corner The other image zooms in on a region containing a star, called Tres-2, with a known Jupiter-like planet orbiting every 2 5 days

"It's thrilling to see this treasure trove of stars," said William Borucki, science principal investigator for Kepler at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif "We expect to find hundreds of planets circling those stars, and for the first time, we can look for Earth-size planets in the habitable zones around other stars like the sun "

Kepler will spend the next three-and-a-half years searching more than 100,000 pre-selected stars for signs of planets It is expected to find a variety of worlds, from large, gaseous ones, to rocky ones as small as Earth The mission is the first with the ability to find planets like ours -- small, rocky planets orbiting sun-like stars in the habitable zone, where temperatures are right for possible lakes and oceans of water

To find the planets, Kepler will stare at one large expanse of sky for the duration of its lifetime, looking for periodic dips in starlight that occur as planets circle in front of their stars and partially block the light Its 95-megapixel camera, the largest ever launched into space, can detect tiny changes in a star's brightness of only 20 parts per million Images from the camera are intentionally blurred to minimize the number of bright stars that saturate the detectors While some of the slightly saturated stars are candidates for planet searches, heavily saturated stars are not

"Everything about Kepler has been optimized to find Earth-size planets," said James Fanson, Kepler's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif "Our images are road maps that will allow us, in a few years, to point to a star and say a world like ours is there "

Scientists and engineers will spend the next few weeks calibrating Kepler's science instrument, the photometer, and adjusting the telescope's alignment to achieve the best focus Once these steps are complete, the planet hunt will begin

"We've spent years designing this mission, so actually being able to see through its eyes is tremendously exciting," said Eric Bachtell, the lead Kepler systems engineer at Ball Aerospace & Technology Corp in Boulder, Colo Bachtell has been working on the design, development and testing of Kepler for nine years

Kepler is a NASA Discovery mission Ames is responsible for the ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis JPL manages the Kepler mission development Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp is responsible for developing the Kepler flight system and supporting mission operations

For images, animations and more information about the Kepler mission, visit:

http://www nasa gov/kepler

-end-

To subscribe to the list, send a message to: hqnews-subscribe@mediaservices nasa gov To remove your address from the list, send a message to: hqnews-unsubscribe@mediaservices nasa gov

The following information is a reminder of your current mailing list subscription:

You are subscribed to the following list: [list_name]

using the following email: example@example.com

You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL:

http://www aus-city com/cgi-bin/dada/mail cgi/u/[list]/

If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism

You may also change your subscription by visiting this list's main screen:

<[program_url]/list/[list]>

If you're still having trouble, please contact the list owner at:

<mailto:[list_owner_email]>

The following physical address is associated with this mailing list:

[physical_address]