The United Nations has named 2009 the International Year of Astronomy. The year was chosen by the United Nations because it marks the four hundred year anniversary of Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei's first observations using a telescope.
The International Year of Astronomy will feature a number of interesting international space projects and events. The European Space Agency has plans to launch a roving laboratory to Mars. Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic service plans to offer commercial sub-orbital space flights that should commence in 2009. Russia should be able to launch its laboratory module for the International Space Station.
However, the most exciting mission in the International Year of Astronomy may well be the NASA Discovery Mission called Kepler. NASA intends to send a probe into space capable of finding small planets like Earth that have the possibility of supporting life. The Kepler telescope is looking for planets in the "habitable zone" of their star or at distances that would allow oceans to exist.
To date, more than two hundred extra solar planets have been found, but none of these discoveries is a planet similar to the Earth. The fact is that it is very difficult to detect a planet as small as Earth in orbit around a distant star. A tiny planet like Earth only reflects the light from the star and does not shine on its own. In addition, this faint planet light appears to be so close to the much brighter star that they are almost impossible to tell apart. The 2009 Kepler Space Laboratory is being designed to go beyond the Hubble Telescope and traditional Earth-bound telescopes to locate rocky Earth-sized planets.
Kepler will be a space-based probe with a cost of over five hundred fifty million dollars. It will use state of the art technology (optical interferometry) that has been refined only within the last two decades. The Kepler probe will be launched into an Earth-trailing orbit around the Sun by a Delta booster rocket. Its telescope is being designed to precisely measure the light from stars in a one hundred square degree part of the sky in the constellation of Cygnus to discover both the size and orbit of undetected new worlds.
It is estimated that the target area of the telescope's observation is home to more than one hundred thousand stars. The spacecraft's photometer will be able to detect small decreases in stellar brightness when a planet "transits" its star. Three transits with a consistent period, brightness change, and duration will provide NASA scientists with evidence of the detection of an extra-solar planet. Kepler is scheduled to focus exclusively on the constellation Cygnus target area for four years with a possible two-year extension.
The Kepler probe is important not only for what it may find, but also for what it may not find. For example, if Kepler can't locate smaller planets like Earth, it may be that planets with "habitable zones" are rare in space. Earth may indeed be truly unique. However, if planets with a size and location similar to Earth are discovered, there would be Earth-like planets to target for subsequent NASA space missions.
The launch of Kepler is now only one year away and will mark an effort to discover our place in the universe. If you believe unidentified flying objects (UFO) exist or simply that life indeed must exist elsewhere, NASA’s Kepler mission should be a highlight in the International Year of Astronomy.
Of course, the ultimate question in space exploration is the question, are we alone in the universe? In 2009, the Kepler Space Laboratory begins the journey to find out the answer, as it fulfills its mission to hunt for life supporting planets like Earth in space.
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