{"id":47718,"date":"2023-07-17T07:47:56","date_gmt":"2023-07-17T07:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/?p=120472"},"modified":"2023-07-17T08:32:30","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T08:32:30","slug":"kepler-space-telescopess-last-planets-found-by-citizen-scientists-sifting-through-archive-data","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/kepler-space-telescopess-last-planets-found-by-citizen-scientists-sifting-through-archive-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Kepler space telescopes\u2019s last planets found by citizen scientists sifting through archive data"},"content":{"rendered":"

The three exoplanets were detected when the now-defunct spacecraft was \u2018running on fumes\u2019. <\/p>

By Ezzy Pearson\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 17 July 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Of the 5,000 <\/span>planets beyond our Solar System discovered so far, around half were found by NASA\u2019s Kepler Space Telescope.<\/p>\n

Now astronomers believe they have identified the last three exoplanets<\/a> the telescope ever uncovered.<\/p>\n

The Kepler Space Telescope<\/a> launched in 2009, spending four years monitoring 150,000 stars, looking for the dip in brightness caused by a planet passing in front (known as the transit method of discovering exoplanets).<\/p>\n

In May 2013, however, the second of the spacecraft\u2019s four reaction wheels \u2013 which helped keep it steady \u2013 failed.<\/p>\n

\""Artist's\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Artist\u2019s impression of the Kepler space telescope Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/Wendy Stenzel<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

The Kepler team eventually found another way to stabilise the craft and conducted the K2 observing campaign which ran until the telescope used up its fuel, officially retiring on 30 October 2018.<\/p>\n

Kepler\u2019s last observation run was able to get one week of high-quality observations of 33,000 stars, followed by 10 days of noisier measurements when the lack of fuel made the spacecraft\u2019s thrusters fire erratically.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was still enough data to identify potential exoplanets and so the team passed the data through the same detection method they\u2019d used to identify many other planets: a dedicated team of citizen scientists who combed through the light curves looking for transits.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey can distinguish transits from other wacky things like a glitch in the instrument,\u201d says Andrew Vandenburg from MIT, who co-led the study.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s helpful, especially when your data quality begins to suffer like it did in K2\u2019s last bit of data.\u201d<\/p>\n

The citizen scientists examined the high-quality data, helping to identify three potential planets.<\/p>\n