NASA's Kepler Space Telescope Discovers Five Exoplanets

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Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
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J.D. Harrington 202-358-5241
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Michael Mewhinney 650-604-3937
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News release: 2010-001 Jan. 4, 2010

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope Discovers Five Exoplanets

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-001&cid=release_2010-001

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Kepler space telescope, designed to find Earth-size planets in the
habitable zone of sun-like stars, has discovered its first five new exoplanets, or planets beyond
our solar system.

Kepler's high sensitivity to both small and large planets enabled the discovery of the exoplanets,
named Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b and 8b. The discoveries were announced Monday, Jan. 4, by
members of the Kepler science team during a news briefing at the American Astronomical
Society meeting in Washington.

"These observations contribute to our understanding of how planetary systems form and evolve
from the gas and dust disks that give rise to both the stars and their planets," said William
Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. Borucki is the mission's
science principal investigator. "The discoveries also show that our science instrument is working
well. Indications are that Kepler will meet all its science goals."

Known as "hot Jupiters" because of their high masses and extreme temperatures, the new
exoplanets range in size from similar to Neptune to larger than Jupiter. They have orbits ranging
from 3.3 to 4.9 days. Estimated temperatures of the planets range from 2,200 to 3,000 degrees
Fahrenheit, hotter than molten lava and much too hot for life as we know it. All five of the
exoplanets orbit stars hotter and larger than Earth's sun.

"It's gratifying to see the first Kepler discoveries rolling off the assembly line," said Jon Morse,
director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We expected
Jupiter-size planets in short orbits to be the first planets Kepler could detect. It's only a matter of
time before more Kepler observations lead to smaller planets with longer-period orbits, coming
closer and closer to the discovery of the first Earth analog."

Launched on March 6, 2009, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the Kepler
mission continuously and simultaneously observes more than 150,000 stars. Kepler's science
instrument, or photometer, already has measured hundreds of possible planet signatures that are
being analyzed.

While many of these signatures are likely to be something other than a planet, such as small stars
orbiting larger stars, ground-based observatories have confirmed the existence of the five
exoplanets. The discoveries are based on approximately six weeks' worth of data collected since
science operations began on May 12, 2009.

Kepler looks for the signatures of planets by measuring dips in the brightness of stars. When
planets cross in front of, or transit, their stars as seen from Earth, they periodically block the
starlight. The size of the planet can be derived from the size of the dip. The temperature can be
estimated from the characteristics of the star it orbits and the planet's orbital period.

Kepler will continue science operations until at least November 2012. It will search for planets as
small as Earth, including those that orbit stars in a warm, habitable zone where liquid water could
exist on the surface of the planet. Since transits of planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars
occur about once a year and require three transits for verification, it is expected to take at least
three years to locate and verify an Earth-size planet.

According to Borucki, Kepler's continuous and long-duration search should greatly improve
scientists' ability to determine the distributions of planet size and orbital period in the future.
"Today's discoveries are a significant contribution to that goal," Borucki said. "The Kepler
observations will tell us whether there are many stars with planets that could harbor life, or
whether we might be alone in our galaxy."

Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery mission. NASA Ames is responsible for the ground system
development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif., managed the Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies
Corp. of Boulder, Colo., was responsible for developing the Kepler flight system. Ball and the
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder are
supporting mission operations. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL
for NASA.

Ground observations necessary to confirm the discoveries were conducted with ground-based
telescopes: the Keck I in Hawaii; Hobby-Ebberly and Harlan J. Smith 2.7m in Texas; Hale and
Shane in California; WIYN, MMT and Tillinghast in Arizona; and Nordic Optical in the Canary
Islands, Spain. For more information about the Kepler mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

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