Kepler-70

Kepler-70, formerly known as KOI-55, is a star in the constellation Cygnus with an apparent visual magnitude of 14.87. This is too faint to be seen with the naked eye; viewing it requires a telescope with an aperture of 40 cm (20 in) or more.

A subdwarf B star, KOI-55 passed through the red giant stage some 18.4 million years ago. In its present day state, it is fusing helium in its core. Once it runs out of helium it will contract to form a white dwarf. It has a relatively small radius of about 0.2 times the Sun's radius; white dwarfs are generally much smaller. The star is host to a planetary system with two planets, KOI-55.01 and KOI-55.02.

Planetary system

On December 26, 2011, evidence for two extremely short-period planets was announced. They were detected by the reflection of starlight caused by the planets themselves, rather than through a variation in apparent stellar magnitude caused by them transiting the star.

The measurements also suggested a smaller body between the two confirmed planets; this remains unconfirmed.

Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler (German: [ˈkɛplɐ]; December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630) was a German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his laws of planetary motion, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican Astronomy. These works also provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation.

During his career, Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, Austria, where he became an associate of Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. Later he became an assistant to astronomer Tycho Brahe, and eventually the imperial mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II and his two successors Matthias and Ferdinand II. He was also a mathematics teacher in Linz, Austria, and an adviser to General Wallenstein. Additionally, he did fundamental work in the field of optics, invented an improved version of the refracting telescope (the Keplerian Telescope), and mentioned the telescopic discoveries of his contemporary Galileo Galilei.

Kepler (spacecraft)

Kepler is a space observatory launched by NASA to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. The spacecraft, named after the Renaissance astronomer Johannes Kepler, was launched on March 7, 2009.

Designed to survey a portion of our region of the Milky Way to discover dozens of Earth-size exoplanets in or near the habitable zone and estimate how many of the billions of stars in the Milky Way have such planets,Kepler's sole instrument is a photometer that continually monitors the brightness of over 145,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view. This data is transmitted to Earth, then analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by exoplanets that cross in front of their host star.

Kepler is part of NASA's Discovery Program of relatively low-cost, focused primary science missions. The telescope's construction and initial operation were managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with Ball Aerospace responsible for developing the Kepler flight system. The Ames Research Center is responsible for the ground system development, mission operations since December 2009, and scientific data analysis. The initial planned lifetime was 3.5 years, but greater-than-expected noise in the data, from both the stars and the spacecraft, meant additional time was needed to fulfill all mission goals. Initially, in 2012, the mission was expected to be extended until 2016, but on July 14, 2012, one of the spacecraft's four reaction wheels used for pointing the spacecraft stopped turning, and completing the mission would only be possible if all other reaction wheels remained reliable. Then, on May 11, 2013, a second reaction wheel failed, disabling the collection of science data and threatening the continuation of the mission.

Kepler (novel)

Kepler is a novel by John Banville, first published in 1981.

In Kepler Banville recreates Prague despite never having been there when he wrote it. A historical novel, it won the 1981 Guardian Fiction Prize.

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