As I’ve done in the past, I joined a January 5 Twitter discussion to ask the folks at NASA’s Kepler mission a few questions.
As a quick refresher for those who don’t know, NASA’s Kepler spacecraft orbits the earth, and allows scientists to study distant stars in ways that were unprecedented before. The focus of this project is to identify exoplanets, or planets orbiting stars other than our own.
During this discussion, Modern Cereal Box was lucky enough to get a video response:
.@ModernCerealBox we are still searching but all signs point to planets being common everywhere #askKepler #aas229 pic.twitter.com/5PEvl3zSqL
— NASA Kepler and K2 (@NASAKepler) January 5, 2017
In response to a separate question, our friends at Kepler revealed that what they really wanted was a second Kepler.
@ModernCerealBox I wish we had two Keplers looking at the same star. It would help us to exclude instrumental artifacts -tb
— NASA Kepler and K2 (@NASAKepler) January 5, 2017
Based on the list of Kepler staff at this event, “tb” most likely stands for Tom Barclay.
For more on exoplanets, and just how much scientists can figure out about them by looking at their stars, check out the blog where I discussed this very topic with other NASA exoplanet researchers.
Modern Cereal Box 