The Kepler Mission: Searching for Other Earths in the Cosmos

15 September 2008

Dr Jim Fanson

Dr Fanson speaks about the Kepler project, NASA's first mission capable of discovering Earth-size planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy. Scheduled for launch in early 2009, Kepler seeks to answer an age-old question: Are there other habitable worlds in the cosmos?

The centuries-old quest for other worlds like our Earth has been rejuvenated by the intense excitement and popular interest surrounding the discovery of giant planets like Jupiter orbiting stars beyond our solar system. With the exception of the pulsar planets, all of the extrasolar planets detected so far are gas giants, approximately 150 as of 2005. The challenge now is to find terrestrial planets (habitable planets like Earth), which are 30 to 600 times less massive than Jupiter. The Kepler Mission, a NASA Discovery mission, is specifically designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to detect and characterize hundreds of Earth-size and smaller planets in or near the habitable zone. The habitable zone encompasses the distances from a star where liquid water can exist on a planet's surface. Results from this mission will allow us to place our solar system within the continuum of planetary systems in the Galaxy.

Broad Topics: Engineering and Information Technology

Sub-topics: Astronomy & Astrophysics

Areas: ANU College of Science

Jim Fanson grew up in rural Wisconsin in the USA, where dark nighttime skies inspired a lifelong interest in astronomy and space exploration. After earning his Ph.D. in Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, he joined NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, specializing in space telescopes. He was a member of the team that fixed the Hubble Space Telescope's blurred vision in 1993. He later served as lead engineer for the design of the Spitzer Space Telescope and Project Manager for the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, two telescopes launched into space in 2003. He currently serves as Project Manager for the Kepler project, which will search for Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy.