Sentences with phrase «transit photometry»

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Kepler mission, launched on March 6, 2009, uses transit photometry from space to achieve unprecedented sensitivity for small planets with orbital periods of up to two years and should discover whether planets analogous to Earth are common or rare.

He was particularly intrigued by a presentation on transit photometry, a theoretical technique that would make it possible to bring those planets into view.

During the conference, some scientists from the National Bureau of Standards suggested that silicon diode detectors might provide the kind of precision that Borucki needed for transit photometry.

«William Borucki, of the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California,» won the astronomy prize for «conceiving the observational technique of transit photometry that raised the tantalizing prospect of sighting Earth - like planets orbiting other stars, and [for] leading the 25 - year - long development of the Kepler mission.»

Kepler measures the size of planets and their distance from stars using a technique known as transit photometry, in which the telescope watches for small decreases in the light visible from specific stars, indicating that a planet has passed in front.

We observed a single transit of the hot Jupiter HD 189733 b, obtaining two simultaneous primary transit lightcurves in the B and z» bands as a demonstration of SOFIA's capability to perform absolute transit photometry.

Abstract: NASA's Kepler Mission uses transit photometry to determine the frequency of earth - size planets in or near the habitable zone of Sun - like stars.

For the next few years, at least, astronomers will still rely on transit photometry to observe these exoplanets.

And converting starlight efficiently into a detectable electronic signal was crucial for transit photometry.

William Borucki, of the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, has captured the astronomy prize for two achievements: conceiving the observational technique of transit photometry that raised the tantalizing prospect of sighting Earth - like planets orbiting other stars, and leading the 25 - year - long development of the Kepler mission, which in 2009 placed a telescope in space to make those observations.

One of the most promising methods of finding them is known as transit photometry, which involves measuring the light coming from a star and making use of the fact that a planet eclipsing the star will reduce the amount of light that we can observe.

That same year Borucki even managed to get a bit of funding from NASA to host a conference dedicated to transit photometry.

Revising the properties of the associated planet candidates based on the updated host star characteristics and refitting the transit photometry, we find that our sample contains 20 planets or planet candidates with radii smaller than 1.25 Earth radii, 20 super-Earths (1.25 - 2 Earth radii), 20 small Neptunes (2 - 4 Earth radii), three large Neptunes (4 - 6 Earth radii), and eight giant planets (> 6 Earth radii).

Abstract: The Kepler Mission, launched on Mar 6, 2009 was designed with the explicit capability to detect Earth - size planets in the habitable zone of solar - like stars using the transit photometry method.

Many as... ▽ More The Kepler Mission, launched on Mar 6, 2009 was designed with the explicit capability to detect Earth - size planets in the habitable zone of solar - like stars using the transit photometry method.

Two distinct sets of transit events were detected: 1) a 152 + / - 4 ppm dimming lasting 1.811 + / - 0.024 hours with ephemeris T [BJD] = 2454964.57375 + N... ▽ More NASA's Kepler Mission uses transit photometry to determine the frequency of earth - size planets in or near the habitable zone of Sun - like stars.

This variation has a period and phase consistent with our transit photometry.

A complementary technique is transit photometry, which measures drops in starlight caused by those planets whose orbits are oriented in space such that they periodically pass between their stars and the telescope; transit observations reveal the sizes of planets as well as their orbital periods.