The Kepler mission

The search for "the Others" has begun officially.The Kepler mission by NASA has been flagged off on March 6, 2009. The major objective of the mission is to find out the 'structure and diversity of planetary systems similar to earth deep in space.

It seems to be technically challenging to make these observations from earth surface due to the bending of light by the atmosphere and the difficlty to observe a celestial object continuously due to hindrance of view by Sun and moon. Both these issues is avoided by placing the telescope in space.

There are billions of stars out there and it is almost impossible to look around everywhere in space for the planets. So Kepler will be focusing on only one small area of Milky way galaxy called Cygnus. This area was chosen because sun will not get in the way of Kepler to block the view of Cygnus and it is a star rich area. There are different methods to identify a planet. Kepler will be using transit method to identify the exoplanet. It is basically looking for the drop in the intensity of light from a star when a planet transit across the star.

It requires very sensitive photometer make this obervation, because according to one NASA scientist it is almost like ' looking for a fly that is crossing the headlight of your car'. This dip in intensity can be due to other reasons too, like normal variation in intensity of light from the star and technical error. So to be confident we should watch for multiple transit. Assuming that a habitable planet like earth would take approximately 1 year to make one rotation around its star, Kepler will have to collect data for a period of approximetly 3 years to make statistically significant obesrvations. During this period it will collect data from approximately 100,000 stars in Cygnus starfield.

Are there other civilizations out there ??A question anyone, who ever got a chance to look up to the night sky would have asked atleast once. The origin of life is a big puzzle for the biologists to solve. I doubt whether I would get an answer before I die. The origin of universe is even bigger question for the astronomists to solve. I am not sure how many generations will pass before we get any clues. The origin of matter? The origin of time ? the origin of everything? Will the human race remain in this form to listen to answers to all these questions? Who knows other than He !!!

We humans are Xenophobic. Most of our science fiction novels depicts aliens as emotionless, ruthless villains who wants to conquer earth and do experiments on live human subjects . No one knows when such an encounter would happen (if ever). The awareness of the vastness of space helps to take off a lots of stress from me. It reminds how insignificant am I. An insignificant dust particle lost in space !!! No one is indispensable here !!! The universe will move on without any of we great humans. Even with out everything in this planet, even without this solar system. That all evolved from nothingness will transform back into nothingness !!

Kepler will be looking only for habitable planets. That is planets which are at an optimum distance from its star. Which are not too close to get burned and not too far to be frozen. The planets which has size and density sufficient enough to provide gravity to keep matters for life in the atmosphere. It is possible that this mission might not find any habitable planents. Does it means there is no life else where ?

No, by all means. Because given the vasteness of space, Cygnus region of Milkyway is nothing. Absnce of any life form in a handful of sand in a seashore does not mean there is no life on earth !! On the contrary presence of any habitable planets also does not means there is life there. It is just a possibility.

It is a good start. Something money worth spending for. Johannes Kepler might be the happiest soul out there now. Hope it would help the young generation to understand the legecy left by one of the founding fathers of planetary science.