The phrase
"planet candidates" refers to objects in space that scientists suspect could potentially be planets. These objects have certain characteristics that make them likely to be planets, but more research and observations are needed to confirm their status.
Full definition
The final catalog
of planet candidates from the original mission was completed late last year and the last observations of K2 are wrapping up.
Kepler - 410 consists of a blend between the fast rotating planet host star (Keple... ▽ More We confirm the
Kepler planet candidate Kepler - 410b (KOI - 42b) as a Neptune sized exoplanet on a 17.8 day, eccentric orbit around the bright (Kp = 9.4) star Kepler - 410A.
Abstract: We extend the statistical analysis of Lissauer et al. (2012, ApJ 750, 112), which demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of Kepler candidate multiple transiting systems (multis) represent true transiting planets, and develop therefrom a procedure to validate large numbers of
planet candidates in multis as bona fide exoplanets.
At the press conference, which marked the start of the 5 - day First Kepler Science Conference here at NASA Ames, Batalha also announced 1094
new planet candidates found by Kepler since February 2011, bringing the total to a whopping 2326.
We apply this method to an analysis of the transit timing variations of two stars with multiple transiting
planet candidates identified by Kepler.
Abstract: About one - third of the ~ 1200 transiting
planet candidates detected in the first four months of \ ik data are members of multiple candidate systems.
Potential transit signals are subjected to further analysis using the pixel - level data, wh... ▽ More We provide updates to the Kepler
planet candidate sample based upon nearly two years of high - precision photometry (i.e., Q1 - Q8).
The team analyzed data collected by the European Southern Observatory's High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) telescope and the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) to search
for planet candidates.
Completeness of the Q1 - Q17
DR24 Planet Candidate Catalogue, with Important Caveats for Occurrence Rate Calculations
Abstract: With each new version of the Kepler pipeline and resulting
planet candidate catalogue, an updated measurement of the underlying planet population can only be recovered with an corresponding measurement of the Kepler pipeline detection efficiency.
We present here 275
planet candidates observed during Campaigns 0 - 10 of the K2 mission that are orbiting stars brighter than 13 mag (in Kepler band) and for which we have obtained high - resolution spectra (R = 44,000).
Of the nearly 5,000 total
planet candidates found to date, more than 3,200 now have been verified, and 2,325 of these were discovered by the space telescope.
The radial velocity analysis presented in this paper serves as example of the type of analysis that will be necessary to confirm the masses of TESS
small planet candidates.
We compare the... ▽ More (Abbreviated) Kepler
planet candidates require both spectroscopic and imaging follow - up observations to rule out false positives and detect blended stars.
Focusing
on planet candidates that have a diameter no smaller than 1.2 times that of Earth could speed up the mission, says Gilliland, because they cast a deeper shadow and so are easier to pick out from the stellar noise.
While we prioritize uniform vetting over the absolute correctness... ▽ More We present the seventh Kepler
planet candidate catalog, which is the first to be based on the entire, uniformly processed, 48 month Kepler dataset.
Mission scientists also employ spectroscopic data from ground - based observatories to help
confirm planet candidates and use stellar observations to remove other confounding factors, such as binary stars (a pair of stars that revolve around a common center of mass).
Batalha is responsible for the selection of the more than 150,000 stars the spacecraft monitors and works closely with team members at Ames to identify
viable planet candidates from Kepler photometry.
The blue dots show
planet candidates from previous Kepler results, while the yellow dots show new candidates the latest data.
After Jenkins and his colleagues have weeded out sunspots and other planet poseurs from the data, Marcy and other astronomers use the Doppler wobble method with terrestrial telescopes to verify that the
remaining planet candidates, or «objects of interest,» are indeed planets.
The team, she says, «have developed a wonderful pathway for
understanding planet candidates orbiting stars that are too faint for the traditional planet confirmation method.»
«We know small planets are common, so if Kepler sees a small -
looking planet candidate and it passes the strict internal vetting, it's more likely to be a planet than a false positive because it's hard to mimic that signal with anything else.»
Although Kuiper belt objects are not the main quarry of Spacewatch, the project's astronomers did find 560 - mile - wide Varuna, a
dwarf planet candidate.
For the brighter targets, CoRoT provides photometry in 3 different uncalibrated «colors» that can be used to
reject planet candidates.
The new Kepler
planet candidates represent ~ 40 % of the sample with Rp ~ 1 Rearth and represent ~ 40 % of the low equilibrium temperature (Teq < 300 K) sample.
Comparing single -
planet candidate KOIs to multi-planet candidate KOIs, we find an observed false positive fraction due to contamination of 16 % and 2.4 % respectively, bolstering the existing evidence that multi-planet KOIs are significantly less likely to be false positives.
We have demonstrated the success of utilizing citizen science, with the discovery of four
unknown planet candidates not previously identified by the Kepler team.