Bizarre Photos Taken by The Kepler Telescope

 

the kepler telescope was a space  discovery machine  during almost a decade in space it put  out some serious numbers  530 506 stars  observed 2606  exoplanets confirmed and 61  supernovae documented sadly it's retired  now  after traveling over 94 million miles  through the void of space  and sending back 678 gigabytes of  research data back to earth  what are some of the stranger things  that kepler  has uncovered welcome to fact nominal  and we're dishing out the details on  some recent celestial breakthroughs in  10 strangest discoveries made by the  kepler telescope  number 10 rocky road kepler-10b  was the original and still is the best  in 2009 it became the first rocky  exoplanet to be discovered  and still remains one of the best  examples of one outside our solar system  at the time it was a pretty big deal as  it wasn't yet known if rocky planets  could exist outside the boundaries of  our near neighbors  and if the hunks of rock and metal  sharing our space were just galactic  one-offs  it has a diameter of 1.4 times that of  earth  however it has over 4.5 times the mass  its density of 8.8 grams per cubic  centimeter  is the same as one of the iron dumbbells  that do bicep curls at the gym  it's a fiery scorched planet that's 20  times closer to its star than mercury is  to our sun  so close in fact that an orbit takes  less than one earth day number nine  surrender you're outnumbered what we  thought we knew about planets and stars  was wrong  it's the opposite way around planets  were  thought to be quite rare and that the  vast majority of stars burnt too hot  and bright to allow for the formation of  planets  the kepler has shown us that around half  of all the stars surveyed so far  are home to at least one planet and that  overall  the planets outnumber the stars it's  thought the milky way consists of  approximately  400 billion stars and based on the  kepler sample data  every one of them would have an average  of 1.6  planets orbiting around it extrapolating  that data  170 billion galaxies exist  within the observable universe home to  one  septillion of stars yep that's  a 1 followed by 24 zeros  and a sixty percent greater number of  planets  number eight ain't no place like home  in 2011 after just two years of  operation and two-thirds the way  into its mission lifespan kepler hit  paydirt  the first habitable planet it was a game  changer  real hard evidence to support the  hypothesis that  earth isn't all that special and that  there are so many more planets out there  that have the capacity to form life  the planet in the spotlight was  kepler-22b  600 light years from earth and a  distance from its sun with a temperature  that could support liquid water whether  the planet was gaseous  rocky or even a liquid wasn't known but  the fact that water could be present on  it was enough to make it stand out as  strange  and an anomaly amongst the other newly  discovered exoplanets at the time  seven as common as muck so  it turns out earth isn't really as  unique as we thought it was  the work of kepler has shown that our  own milky way galaxy is jam-packed  full of planets not only that at least  20 percent and possibly as many as 50  percent of local stars  are likely to have small rocky planets  within the habitable zone of their  parent stars these are referred to as  earth-like planets  somewhere between the size of our blue  planet and neptune  they reside in the goldilocks zone a  distance from their system star where  it's cool enough for liquid water to  exist without being ice and  not too warm that the water turns to  steam  from what we know about organic  chemistry and biology  if life were to exist anywhere it would  be one of these  to put this into perspective as many as  6  billion earth-like planets could exist  in the milky way alone  number six gone rogue rogue planets are  just that  serving no master and answering to no  one  they're free-floating through space not  locked into  an orbit to any star they're a bit of a  worry as they are often traveling at  great speed after being ejected from  their orbits  but intense solar activity from their  unstable original host star  because of how kepler works it doesn't  see planets  so much as it measures the shadow they  make as they pass between the earth and  their own star  the dip in light intensity as it's  either partially or fully occluded  gives us information about the size and  composition of that planet  the fact that there are more planets  than stars points to the highly  probability and extremely likely  scenario  that there are more free-floating  planetary mass objects in our milky way  than there are stars only we have no  real method of observing them at this  time  5. software earth version 2.0  in 2014 our keen-eyed friends  scoped out our doppelganger despite  being over  1400 light years away kepler-452b  eerily shares many characteristics with  earth  so much that it's now referred to as  earth 2.0  despite being roughly 60 larger it  orbits as  a similar distance from its star as we  do from the sun  the au or astronomical unit is a  standard of measurement we use for  distance and space that is defined by  how far the earth orbits from the sun  kepler-452b is pretty much spot-on  sitting at a radius of 1.04 au from its  star  that's 10 larger than the sun and about  20 percent as bright  a year on kepler-452b  lasts 385 earth days  and although it's not proven it's widely  accepted by the scientific community  the great oceans of liquid water exist  on its surface  number four two suns are better than one  in 2011 the kepler confirmed what  scientists thought was  only remotely and theoretically possible  a planet that orbits two suns  fans of the star wars franchise rejoiced  as luke skywalker's home planet which  features heavily in the movie trilogies  famously had two suns in its pink red  sky  kepler-22b is sorta close 200 light  years away from earth  it's a cold gaseous planet where organic  carbon-based life would have a very hard  time  sprouting forth that being said it sees  twice the number of solar eclipses  thanks to its unusual planetary transit  between the two stars of that binary  system  george lucas may have predicted  kepler-22b  due to its hostile environment it's  unlikely that any aspiring jedi knights  call  the planet home three small fry  the kepler spied a curious little planet  in 2013 called  kepler-37b it's 215 light years away  from earth slightly larger than our moon  but existing in its own solitary orbit  around its host star  now this pint-sized planet takes only 13  days to complete this orbit and has  surface temperature exceeding  700 degrees fahrenheit it has no  atmosphere  as any gas is instantly burned off and  blasted away from the intense heat and  radiation emitted  by a star that is more than a little too  close  for comfort the date it's still the  teeniest one we've seen  as the technology required to accurately  detect planets smaller than earth  didn't exist when the kepler first  launched to undertake its mission  this points to the distinct possibility  that many many more  smaller planets have been missed during  kepler's surveys  and the number of planets in the milky  way can be grossly underestimated  two four seasons in a day  the next time you complain about a sunny  afternoon picnic being rained out  spare a thought for kepler-413b  it's a wobbly old planet rotating  wildly around on its axis like a child's  spinning top now to give you an idea the  earth's axis has undergone  23.5 degrees of rotational precession  over the past 26 000 years  on kepler-413b the tilt of the planet's  axis  can vary drastically by as much as 30  degrees over an 11-year period  a rapid and erratic change in  orientation and alignment led to  crazy weather conditions if you were on  its surface  you wouldn't know whether to wear shorts  a raincoat  or tie yourself down to the nearest  piece of structure in an effort  to survive the coming hurricane number  one  e.t phone home kic 846 2852  also affectionately known as tabi's star  boyajian's star or simply  the wtf star is situated in the cygnus  constellation roughly  1470 light years from earth  there is a strange brightness and  dimming coming from this yellow white  dwarf star  leaving scientists scratching their  heads  there's no real explanation as to why  the light emitted by the star  can fall by as far as 21 for random  lengths of time  and the cycles appear to have no  constant pattern or follow any  mathematical logic  it has been theorized that the  unpredictable bursts of light and radio  waves received from this part of the  universe  could be transmissions sent by the  remnants of an alien civilization  however it's more likely that there is a  cloud of dust  blocking the signal or an exoplanet  stuck in an irregular orbit then et's  parents making a long-distance phone  call to earth  to chat with their son