Exploring Exoplanet Populations with NASA's Kepler Mission

摘要

The Kepler Mission is exploring the diversity of planets and planetarysystems. Its legacy will be a catalog of discoveries sufficient for computingplanet occurrence rates as a function of size, orbital period, star-type, andinsolation flux. The mission has made significant progress toward achievingthat goal. Over 3,500 transiting exoplanets have been identified from theanalysis of the first three years of data, 100 of which are in the habitablezone. The catalog has a high reliability rate (85-90% averaged over theperiod/radius plane) which is improving as follow-up observations continue.Dynamical (e.g. velocimetry and transit timing) and statistical methods haveconfirmed and characterized hundreds of planets over a large range of sizes andcompositions for both single and multiple-star systems. Population studiessuggest that planets abound in our galaxy and that small planets areparticularly frequent. Here, I report on the progress Kepler has made measuringthe prevalence of exoplanets orbiting within 1 AU of their host stars insupport of NASA's long-term goal of finding habitable environments beyond thesolar system.