Latest News

• 5/8/12 - Data Release Notes 15 describing quarter 11 data is now available.

• 3/16/12 - The tarfiles containing the public data for Quarters 0-4 have been recreated to contain the lightcurves reprocessed with the updated version of the SOC pipeline. The most notable improvements include:
  • an improved detrending algorithm (i.e., PDC MAP) that removes instrumental artifacts while retaining astrophysical signals,
  • the addition of the background flux time series measured for the optimal aperture,
  • the addition of RMS CDPP measurements at 3, 6 and 12 hour time scales.

• 3/13/12 - Cotrending Basis Vector (CBV) files for data release 14, Q0-Q4, are now available.

• 2/28/12 - The updated planet candidates table has arrived. The new table contains 2,321 planetary candidates with links to papers describing confirmed planets, and replaces the previous table of 1,235 targets received in April, 2011.

• 12/07/11 - The Kepler Project announced this week an accelerated data release schedule. This schedule accelerates all data except for those included in existing agreements between Guest Observers and the Kepler Asteroseismological Science Consortium. Data from quarters 4, 5, and 6 (Dec 2009-Sep 2010) will be released on Jan 7, 2012. Quarters 7, 8, and 9 (Sep 2010-Jun 2011) will be released on Jul 28, 2012. Quarters 10, 11, 12, and 13 (Jun 2011-Jun 2012) will be released on Oct 28, 2012. All data will be available through the Kepler Data Search interface. Quarters collected after Q13 will have no exclusive data use period.

Quick Links

• Kepler Data Search - search for and retrieve Kepler Data.

• Kepler Target Search - find targets on the Kepler CCDs. Alternatively, the Enhanced Target Search form includes additional magnitudes, colors, and non_KIC targets.

• Kepler Results Catalog - These tables describe signals due to potential planets and eclipsing binaries. It also provides a list of targets with transits that have proven to be false positives.

• General Search Information - Information on search syntax.

• Kepler Public Light Curves - Information on quick access to the public lightcurves.

• Kepler Data Release Notes - these notes describe the data, the processing, and the known deficiencies associated with each release of Kepler data, including the most recent one. They are a critical read for anyone wishing to draw scientifically valid conclusions from the analysis or interpretation of Kepler data.

• Pipeline Processing Papers - Three SPIE papers presented at the Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy Conference (27-30 June 2010) describe the main components of the Kepler data processing system.

Kepler Mission Description

Kepler, a NASA Strategic mission launched into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit on March 6, 2009, is designed to stare at a 105 square degree region of the sky in the constellations of Cygnus and Lyra. The mission's goal is to obtain long-term, unfiltered, and precise light curves of up to 100,000 cool stars and search for periodic transits of planets as small as the Earth. A secondary objective of the mission is to study rapid oscillations of the target stars in order to determine their ages, radii, and metallic chemical compositions of planet-hosting stars. The Kepler Science page and Science Goals pages lay out the scientific objectives in some detail.

The science operations phase of the mission began on May 12, 2009. Since then Kepler has monitored the same sky field almost continuously. The principal exception is for monthly data downlinks during which the spacecraft must turn away from the monitored field, reorient toward the Earth for the downlink, and return to the field. The spacecraft also "rolls" every three months to allow for continous illumination of Kepler's solar arrays. A table of scheduled quarterly rolls, each lasting about 1 day, is given on the MAST/Kepler FAQ page (see FAQ tab in left "gutter"). The fields of view of 42 CCDs covers a four-way symmetrical pattern on the sky such that the same stars remain on the detectors during the mission. Although the Kepler field covers a large sky area containing millions of stars, data from small regions around only 150,000 targets are recorded and stored onboard the spacecraft. The default integration time is about 30 minutes, although a small number of asteroseismology and other targets of interest are recorded with integration times of about 1 minute.

The mission has a nominal lifetime of three and one half years to pursue its core science objectives. These objectives will be carried out by Science Principal Investigator William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center, the Kepler Science Team, the Kepler Participating Scientists, and the Kepler Asteroseismology Science Consortium. In addition, a limited Guest Observer (GO) program, dedicated to general (non-exoplanetary) astrophysics has been established. Proposal solicitations will be made on an annual basis, resources permitting, by NASA Headquarters. The GO program is administered from NASA's Ames Research Center. Information of interest to potential GO proposers can be found at the GO program website and in NASA's omnibus annual announcement Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences 2012 NASA ROSES.

A map of where Kepler's Field of View in the sky was obtained from the Project and is shown below. Clicking on this image will bring up a magnified view. Users can reconnoiter the Kepler field in detail by going to the FFI display page.

Investigators interested in whether targets included in the MAST/Kepler ("KIC") database lie on any of the 42 Kepler detector fields should first consult the Kepler Target Search form. Users are also emphatically advised not to use solely color-derived quantities like Teff, logg, etc. to select their targets for proposals.

As the mission proceeds, the Project will periodically drop stars as exoplanetary search candidates. As it does so, MAST will provide access to lists of targets and/or data released as notifications in the Dropped Target and Published Target tabs under the Search and Retrieval item on the left banner of this page and in the Public Light Curves link in the Quick Links section above. As data become nonproprietary, the restrictions against accessing them, which are denoted by the "yellow band" on the Retrieval page, will disappear. In addition to the Dropped and Target lists, Kepler light curves and associated ground-based follow up data is available as Kepler High Level Science Products.