Title:
The Kepler space mission: Looking for Earth-like planets.
Abstract:
To date, about 500 extrasolar planets (exoplanets) have been discovered orbiting other stars. Of
those some 100 are transiting (eclipsing) their host star, allowing a much more detailed
investigation, including the measurement of their radius and mass, and the study of their
atmospheres. Most of those exoplanets are gas giants the size of Jupiter. Kepler is an ambitious
NASA Discovery mission whose primary goal is to measure the frequency of small, Earth-like
planets, orbiting Sun-like stars in their Habitable Zone, where liquid water can exist on the
planet's surface. I will discuss the exciting new results recently obtained by Kepler, including
the detection of about 1,200 transiting planet candidates and 170 multiple transiting planet
systems.