Bob Foley, Sarah Ell, Roger Hunter and Jake Hunter. Photo Contributed
On Friday March 30, Langley High Students had a special speaker, NASA's Roger Hunter, Mission Manager for Project Kepler. 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 the fraction of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy that might have such planets. Since science operations began in May 2009, the Kepler team has released two catalogs of transiting planet candidates. So far, there are 2,321 candidates.
The science department at Langley High School sponsored Hunter's visit. Megan Georges, head of the science department, Bob Foley, and Sarah Ell (both physics and science teachers) all made the visit possible for Langley students. Originally, only physics students were going to attend the lecture in the school's library. However, once the word spread around school that the NASA Mission Director would be speaking, the response grew such that it was decided to video link the lecture to the entire student body during their 3rd period class.
Hunter's lecture lasted about an hour and was followed by a question and answer period. The Q & A session ran over the allotted time as there were so many students with questions for the Mission Director.
Hunter said that since Kepler began the science data-collection phase in 2009, they do a health check of the spacecraft twice a week and download science data once per month. NASA posts updates on a periodic basis as new information develops. You can see these updates at www.NASA.gov/kepler/
FICTION HAS BECOME REALITY. The Kepler spacecraft located a planet with a double sunset as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago. NASA has named the discovered planet "Tatooine" as in the movie. This is the first planet known to definitively orbit two stars. It's called a circumbinary planet. Unlike in Star Wars, this planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. "Tatooine" is 200 light years from Earth.
The Kepler Mission has received several awards; the two most recent being winner of the 2012 Aviation Week Laureate Award in the Space category. Secondly, Kepler has been selected as the 2012 recipient of the Space Foundation's John L. "Jack" Swigert, Jr., Award for Space Exploration.
The mission duration is 3.5 years with a possible extension to six years. Hunter said the next extension will be decided upon this coming week. The mission was launched in 2009 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Kepler is monitored from the University of Colorado. Data is studied at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. The dimensions of the spacecraft's overall size is about nine feet in diameter and 15.3 feet high. Its weight is 2,320.1 pounds. Kepler's orbital period is 371 days. Power is provided by four non-coplanar panels with a total area of 109.8 square feet of solar collecting surface area. Combined, the 2860 individual solar cells can produce over 1,100 Watts. Power storage is provided by a 20 Amp-hour rechargeable lithium-ion battery.
Hunter gave a homework assignment to students over their spring-break. He showed a slide of where Kepler is currently orbiting in association with Earth and our sun. He asked the students to calculate where the Kepler space module will be in 49 to 50 years and the second part of the homework question is to explain why the Kepler space craft moves in a Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit making continual loops. The first two students to answer both questions correctly will receive an official NASA polo or sweatshirt. The students are to turn in their answers to Bob Foley, physics teacher at Langley.
THE DEPARTING NOTE from Hunter was that NASA has many gray-haired scientists and the organization is in need of younger, energetic, and creative minded scientists and engineers. Kepler's mission is the first step of a multi-generational quest to find habitable planets for Earth's growing population.