Project News

NASA's Pleiades Supercomputer Ranks Among World's Fastest

Kepler • Project News • June 20th, 2011

The Pleiades supercomputer plays a crucial role in Kepler data analysis. Pleiades now contains 23,296 Intel(R) Xeon(R) quad- and hex-core processors (111,104 cores in 182 racks) that can run at a theoretical peak of approximately 1.32 quadrillion floating point operations, or calculations, per...

NASA’s Kepler Yields the Next Harvest: A bounty of findings delivered at the 218th Meeting of the AAS in Boston

Kepler • Project News • May 25th, 2011

The Kepler Team had 50 presentations at the 218th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Boston, 2011 May 22-26.

Kepler’s Astounding Haul of Multiple Planet Systems

Kepler • Project News • May 23rd, 2011

Within just the first four months of NASA’s Kepler spacecraft data collection, astronomers have found evidence for more than 1,200 planetary candidates. Of those, 408 reside in systems containing two or more planets, and most of those look very different than our solar system.

How to Learn a Star’s True Age

Kepler • Project News • May 23rd, 2011

For many movie stars, their age is a well-kept secret. The same is true of stars in space. Like our Sun, most stars look almost the same for most of their lives. So how can we tell if a star is one billion or 10 billion years old? Astronomers may have found a solution – measuring the star’s spin.

Kepler-10c and a New Method to Validate Planets

Kepler • Project News • May 23rd, 2011

Kepler has discovered a second planet in the Kepler-10 star system: Kepler-10c with a radius of 2.2 times that of Earth's, and it orbits the star every 45 days.

WISE Delivers Millions of Galaxies, Stars, Asteroids

Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer • Project News • April 14th, 2011

Astronomers across the globe can now sift through hundreds of millions of galaxies, stars and asteroids collected in the first bundle of data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission.

Echoes from the depth of a red giant star

Kepler • Project News • April 7th, 2011

Continuation of news item from 2011 March 17. Science article: Kepler Detected Gravity-Mode Period Spacings in a Red Giant Star, by P. G. Beck et al. - Asteroseismic observations with the Kepler satellite probed the deep interior of an evolved star.

Kepler Listens to an Orchestra of Solar-Type Stars

Kepler • Project News • April 7th, 2011

An international team of asteroseismologists, led by the University of Birmingham, has used data from the NASA Kepler Mission to sample the ‘stellar music’ of 500 stars similar to the Sun, according to research published today (8 April 2011) in the journal Science.

Kepler Discovery of a Unique Triply Eclipsing Triple Star

Kepler • Project News • April 7th, 2011

Star HD 181068 , a 7th magnitude star almost visible to the naked eye is in reality a complex triple system in which three stars undergo mutual eclipses as each of the stars gets behind or in front of the others. The most luminous object is a red giant star around which a close pair of two red...

Giant Stars Reveal Their Inner Secrets for the First Time

Kepler • Project News • March 30th, 2011

University of Sydney astrophysicists are behind a major breakthrough in the study of stars known as red giants, finding a way to peer deep into their cores to discover which ones are in early infancy, which are fresh-faced teenagers, and which facing their dying days.

NASA's Pleiades Supercomputer Ranks Among World's Fastest

Kepler • June 20th, 2011

The Pleiades supercomputer plays a crucial role in Kepler data analysis. Pleiades now contains 23,296 Intel(R) Xeon(R) quad- and hex-core processors (111,104 cores in 182 racks)...

NASA’s Kepler Yields the Next Harvest: A bounty of findings delivered at the 218th Meeting of the AAS in Boston

Kepler • May 25th, 2011

The Kepler Team had 50 presentations at the 218th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Boston, 2011 May 22-26.

Kepler’s Astounding Haul of Multiple Planet Systems

Kepler • May 23rd, 2011

Within just the first four months of NASA’s Kepler spacecraft data collection, astronomers have found evidence for more than 1,200 planetary candidates. Of those, 408 reside in...

How to Learn a Star’s True Age

Kepler • May 23rd, 2011

For many movie stars, their age is a well-kept secret. The same is true of stars in space. Like our Sun, most stars look almost the same for most of their lives. So how can we...

Kepler-10c and a New Method to Validate Planets

Kepler • May 23rd, 2011

Kepler has discovered a second planet in the Kepler-10 star system: Kepler-10c with a radius of 2.2 times that of Earth's, and it orbits the star every 45 days.

WISE Delivers Millions of Galaxies, Stars, Asteroids

Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer • April 14th, 2011

Astronomers across the globe can now sift through hundreds of millions of galaxies, stars and asteroids collected in the first bundle of data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared...

Echoes from the depth of a red giant star

Kepler • April 7th, 2011

Continuation of news item from 2011 March 17. Science article: Kepler Detected Gravity-Mode Period Spacings in a Red Giant Star, by P. G. Beck et al. - Asteroseismic...

Kepler Listens to an Orchestra of Solar-Type Stars

Kepler • April 7th, 2011

An international team of asteroseismologists, led by the University of Birmingham, has used data from the NASA Kepler Mission to sample the ‘stellar music’ of 500 stars similar...

Kepler Discovery of a Unique Triply Eclipsing Triple Star

Kepler • April 7th, 2011

Star HD 181068 , a 7th magnitude star almost visible to the naked eye is in reality a complex triple system in which three stars undergo mutual eclipses as each of the stars...

Giant Stars Reveal Their Inner Secrets for the First Time

Kepler • March 30th, 2011

University of Sydney astrophysicists are behind a major breakthrough in the study of stars known as red giants, finding a way to peer deep into their cores to discover which...