WEBVTT - Exoplanet Overload 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:14.640 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:18.079 podcast that looks at the future and says our galaxy 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:23.759 itself contains a hundred billion stars. I'm Jonathan Strickland and 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.880 I'm Joe McCormick. So today we wanted to talk about 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:31.000 something that was in the news fairly recently, that being 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:35.239 the Kepler telescope. Uh, there was a big announcement that 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:39.080 NASA had not too long ago. Was it aliens? No, 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:41.760 but that was what everyone thought it was gonna be, right, 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.040 We actually had well, we had a morning meeting the 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:47.560 week that the announcement came out. We had a morning 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.879 meeting where we specifically said we need to keep an 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:53.040 eye on what the NASA announcement is going to be 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:55.360 because we probably wanted to cover it. And I said, 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:57.440 someone asked, like, what do you think it's going to be? 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:00.880 And apparently the scuttle but at the time was aliens. 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:04.600 It's all alien. Definitely alien aliens. So it was not aliens. 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:07.040 It was not aliens. And not only was it not aliens, 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:09.560 but when I heard which part of NASA was making 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:11.120 the announcement, when I heard it was going to be 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.800 the Kepler team. I thought, there's no way it could 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:18.679 be aliens because the Kepler telescope couldn't tell us that. Well, 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:22.200 it could be that some aliens landed on the Kepler telescope. 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:27.440 Then yes, the Kepler teams like so bad news telescopes 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:33.240 broken good news or taken hostage. Right right, the telescope 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.640 is just showing us the backside of the Moon that 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:39.080 has a big message on it saying ha ha ha 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:42.039 written there. Um, that was not what happened. That was 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.920 not what happened. But but the silver lining of all 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:48.120 of these things not being the announcement is that the 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:52.120 actual announcement was really cool, absolutely super cool. So we've 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:55.520 talked about exo planets on this show before, the planets 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.480 that are not inside our own Solar system but are 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.640 part of some other system, or potentially a rogue planet 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:04.720 just going out there and being all han solo like 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.080 in the galaxy the worst rogue go ahead. He's such 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.280 a scruffy looking nerve herder. So we we wanted to 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:16.760 mention that this this particular press event was to announce 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:20.600 that the number of identified exo planets had more than 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:26.160 doubled due to a new approach to looking at the 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:30.840 data coming from the Kepler Telescope. That's amazing. Yeah, So 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.919 the announcement itself was in brief that on May ten, 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:37.840 uh NASA held this press conference and the announced the 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.639 Kepler mission had verified the existence of one thousand, two 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.320 hundred and eighty four known exoplanets in our galaxy. And 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:49.359 that's verified. So that's that's in addition to the nine 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.119 hundred something that we already knew existed, right, nine eighty 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.640 four that had been previously verified through other means. Yeah, 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:59.400 So they arrived at this number by analyzing four thousand, 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:04.160 three written two potential planets or candidate planets that have 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:09.359 been discovered and cataloged as of July by the Kepler Telescope. Now, 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:13.120 because the method we currently have for detecting potential exo planets, 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:15.200 which we're going to talk about in a minute, not 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.680 all candidates will turn out to be real exo planets. 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.919 That might be anomalies or other phenomena that can simulate 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.280 the presence of a planet. So after not on purpose 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:29.640 probably right, probably not disguised as a planet with a 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.679 clever planet disguise kit from party city, right right. Uh So, 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:37.640 after applying some verification criteria to all of the discoveries, 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:41.160 the Kepler team published findings indicating that one thousand, two 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.600 hundred and eighty four them had a greater than nine 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.280 percent chance of being a real exo planet. And those 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:50.120 are pretty good odds. So these are now considered verified. 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.120 They're for real. Maybe one and a hundred of them 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:55.880 will turn out to be wrong, but anyway, a further 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:58.840 one thousand, three hundred and twenty seven planets had a 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.600 better than fifty percent a chance of actually being planets. Uh, 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.160 and they will require more research before we can say 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.960 with confidence whether they're real planets or not. That's pretty 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:13.720 amazing because I would have a much lower threshold, like six. Sure, 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:16.320 I'm going to call that a planet. It's a planet. Yeah. 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:18.719 They're a little more strict with their numbers than I think. 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:21.719 It's okay that NASA is more exacting than you, or 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:23.839 that you are less exacting than that, whichever way you 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:25.599 want to put in. They are. They are the ones 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:28.560 who have actually put stuff into space, whereas I have 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:34.000 only filled up space, so you've probably excreted some gases 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.320 that ended up in space. I have been known to 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:42.080 do so mean catering, that is true. Sorry about carbon 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:46.440 dioxide that he exhaled. Come on whatever anyway, but there 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.440 is a simple takeaway. So the galaxy is looking more 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:52.760 and more populous all the time, populous in terms of planets, 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:57.200 not necessarily aliens, though this might come with the territory because, 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:02.400 in the words of NASA Astrophysics Asian Director Paul Hurts quote, 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.560 before the Kepler Space Telescope launched, we did not know 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:08.760 whether exoplanets were rare or common in the galaxy. Thanks 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.360 to Kepler in the research community, we now know there 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.960 could be more planets than stars. And as I said 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.240 at the beginning of this podcast, our galaxy is thought 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:21.760 to have around a hundred billion or more stars in it. 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.640 So when you think there could be more planets than stars, 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:29.800 that's a bunch of planets just in our galaxy alone. Yeah. Now, 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.000 a lot of those planets are going to be burnt 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:36.000 up little crispies or gas giants, places where there's almost 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:38.120 definitely not going to be any life in the way 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.279 we understand life. But we've also added to our account 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:45.560 of planets that are believed to be in the habitable zone. Yeah, yeah, 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.760 nine of these planets that they're looking at are being 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:53.080 considered potentially habitable, which we will go into a little 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.360 bit later. But but first, let's talk about this incredible 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.280 telescope and how it works. Sure, so the tree of 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.479 the Kepler telescope is one that I think it's fascinating, 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:08.760 and also it tells you a lot about how NASA 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:12.560 operates and how they have to be so careful before 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.280 they go all in on a mission. And there's no 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.200 really have seas on these kind of missions. They cost 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:24.560 millions upon millions of dollars billions. Sure, yeah, yeah, I 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:26.680 love these kind of stories because it's so it's so 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.520 harrowing until you get to I mean, you know, happy, 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:33.160 happy ending in this one. Right, we we know how 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:34.920 it turned out, So there's not gonna be a whole 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.839 attention as I unraveled this tale. But just imagine that 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:40.760 you don't know that the Kepler is out there and 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:45.640 actually doing science. So the whole thing started out with 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:49.040 a simple question, which is just how frequent our other 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.440 earth sized planets in our galaxy? Is our planet and anomaly? 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:58.240 Is it something that happens one in a hundred million 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:03.400 star systems, in which case finding life would be incredibly difficult, 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:06.400 or is it something more common where finding life maybe 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:10.920 is within the realm of possibility in the foreseeable future. 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:13.400 May not be within our lifetimes, but perhaps in the 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:18.320 foreseeable future. So to answer this question, there was a 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:23.080 series of different proposed projects that came up. UH. First 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:28.360 of all, back in a guy named Frank Rosenblatt suggested 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:32.560 an outlined a method for detecting satellites orbiting other stars, 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.720 satellites like planets, and it's called the transit method. Now, 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.280 this method looks at the light coming from a star 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.240 and it measures that amount of light. Now, should that 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.840 light dim, it suggests something has passed between that star 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:49.600 and our perspective whatever we're using to look at that star. 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.680 And if this dimming happens at a regular interval, it's 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:57.080 just that something is actually orbiting that star, like a planet. Now, 0:07:57.200 --> 0:07:59.040 the reason we call it the transit method is that's 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.440 how we described the movement of the planet across its 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:05.320 host star. From our perspective, the planet is transiting its 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.360 host star, and we call it the the actual path 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:12.520 the transit UH. And a side note, Frank Rosenblatt was 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:15.000 a bit of a renaissance man. He didn't just he 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.120 actually wasn't known for astronomy. He built kind of a 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:21.920 modest observatory behind his his house, I believe, but he 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:25.360 was not an astronomer. He was actually working in AI. 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:31.000 Oh yeah, no, I mean thanks thanks Rosenblatt for being 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:35.840 awesome at multiple things. So he worked largely in areas 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.720 of AI that involved pattern recognition and speech recognition. Tricky, 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:45.400 tricky things. So NASA began to talk about how could 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:49.559 they use the transit method practically, Like, how could they 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:53.520 actually do this, because when you're talking about things as 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:57.760 distant as stars and things as relatively small as planets 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:01.080 in comparison to those stars, A, you're going to need 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.880 a really advanced system to be able to detect that 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:08.320 dimming of the light. Right, it's not gonna be it's 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:10.280 not gonna be obvious. It's not like there's a big 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:12.360 shade going in. Yeah, it's not like it's like like 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:17.080 Morse code or something. It's pretty subtle exactly. So they 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.559 were essentially laying out the requirements back in Night four 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:23.960 UH that they felt were necessary in order to detect 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.679 plants with a reasonable amount of confidence. They said, in 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:28.920 order for us to do this. Here are the things 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:33.560 that we need to be available to us. Otherwise anything 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.400 we send up there is not likely to work. It 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.480 kills me that they started thinking about this in and 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:43.040 it took until anyway, Yeah, it took some took some time. 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.800 So they had a conference on high precision photometry, and 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:51.480 that acted, as I wrote, launching ground and about NASA. 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.160 I didn't even mean to make a pun, but it 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:56.680 acted as a launching ground for discussions about a space 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:01.200 based telescope designed to detect a transitting planet. Now, when 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.960 I talked about that tiny amount of light dimming, to 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.600 give you an idea of how much you know, how 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:10.200 how small that amount is. Uh, stars, of course tend 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:12.760 to be much much bigger than they're the planets that 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.640 orbit them. For example, our Sun's diameter is a hundred 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:19.920 and nine times greater than the Earth's diameter, so it's 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.360 much larger. Earth sized planets are very tiny compared to 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:25.839 host stars, particularly stars that we think are more likely 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:28.320 to be supportive of life, stars that are similar to 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:32.080 our own. Um. The change in brightness amounts to about 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:37.920 one or one parts per million of the total Sun's brightness, 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.760 and that dimming lasts between two and sixteen hours as 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:45.120 the planet moves across its star from our perspective. Because 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:47.439 that's such a tiny difference, we need that really sophisticated 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:51.920 equipment to pick it up. So in NASA proposed some 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:54.920 new missions to look into the possibility of life in 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:58.120 our galaxy, and the first concept they talked about was 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:03.000 called free SIP, or the Frequency of Earth size inner Planets. 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.360 That proposal was rejected largely because there was serious doubt 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:10.479 that we were actually at the level of sophistication necessary 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.240 to detect any transitting planets of Earth like size. So 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:16.559 essentially I said, like, well, we can't really spend money 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.200 on this because as far as we can tell, our 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.480 technology isn't advanced enough for us to even see something. 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:26.280 If it's there, there could be tons of transitting planets, 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.360 but we would never even be able to tell. Uh. 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:31.600 So it would be proposed again just two years later 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:35.679 with a space based telescope in lagrange orbit. But then 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:38.000 the committee determined that the price would be similar to 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:41.679 that of the Hubble, and the Hubble was pretty darn expensive, 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:44.680 and they weren't sure that they were going to be 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.839 able to be get that. UM approved especially since the 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:51.760 Hubble had a couple of minor issues with it which 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:55.280 cost about it cost a lot cost. It cost a 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:57.360 lot of money to repair because we had to send 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.559 people back up to it, which already is going to 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.280 cost you drama money. Um, So that was so I 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.520 was rejected again. It did not make that approach. And 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:08.400 part of the reason it was so expensive, I'm sure, 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.560 is that if you remember, lagrange orbit is a point 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.800 between Earth and the Sun where a spacecraft will keep 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.080 up with Earth's orbit with with very little effort due 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.800 to the opposing gravitational forces of the Earth in the Sun. 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:25.600 And so it's it's, uh, about what is it like 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:28.719 four times out from Earth as far as the Moon. Yeah, 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:32.880 it depends. There's actually three different there are three lagrange 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.640 points that are around the Earth. But so yeah, so 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:39.040 it's it's sending its spacecraft out there, right, And not 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.520 only are you spending a spacecraft out there, but even 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:44.280 though it can more easily stay within that orbit, you 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:47.200 still have to do a lot of course corrections to 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:49.920 keep it there, which means you need more fuel, more 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:54.800 equipment for thrusters. It increases the expense of the spacecraft 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.280 in order to to do that. So engineers began to 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.319 experiment with charge coupled of vice sensors or c c 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:03.480 D s. These are the sort of things you find 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:06.080 in digital cameras. UH. They wanted to see if this 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.559 was possible to make a CCD style sensor as opposed 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.520 to the traditional silicon sensors and see if those would 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:16.000 make UH they would be more effective UH, and they 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.520 started to have some real success in lab experiments, so 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.800 they began to to consider that as a potential tool 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.880 for the future Kepler telescope or what would become the 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:28.160 Kepler telescope. They hadn't even thought of that yet, so 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:32.040 in the idea was revisited again. So you know, two 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:34.840 more years later and they had made some changes to 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:39.360 the proposal. One was moving the spacecraft into a solar 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:42.160 orbit rather than a lagrange orbit, so this would be 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:46.400 its own orbit around the Sun um and the big 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:48.559 selling point of that was they wouldn't have to have 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.720 all that extra fuel to keep it within the lagrange 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.320 point orbit. They could just put it into a solar 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:58.120 orbit and then occasionally have to maneuver it, but not 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.959 as frequently as the other style. UH. The project was 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:05.240 renamed Kepler after the German astronomer who proposed the laws 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:09.320 of planetary motion, So Freesip was dropped, Kepler was brought 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:13.960 on and the proposal was rejected once more. Now this 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:16.160 time it was because no one at that point had 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:21.120 proven the telescope could simultaneously observe thousands of stars. So 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.360 researchers went to work on a prototype photometer to see 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.480 if they could actually prove it could be done. So 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:33.040 in those researchers finished building a photometer and in they 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:36.080 demonstrated it could observe six thousand stars in a single 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.359 field of view and generate data that could then be analyzed. 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:41.640 So they said, we've proven it can be done, the 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:44.680 data can be checked, we can look for transiting planets. 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.000 There we go. The results of the project were published 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:50.320 in a paper in nineteen So this is not a 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.240 super fast process. It took three years from building it 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:55.680 to testing it to writing about it getting it published. 0:14:56.560 --> 0:15:01.400 So later they proposed Kepler yet again, and get what happened. 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:05.280 It got rejected. Yeah, this is the point where you're like, 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.320 the thing is in space, how did it ever get there? Right? 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:12.440 So we're we're with you, we feel your pain. But 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:14.280 this time it was rejected on the grounds that there 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:16.920 was no evidence that the photometer would be precise enough 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.320 to find Earth sized planets that could also operate in 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:23.240 orbit in the presence of the noise that you would 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.640 get while the telescope itself is in orbit. So it 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.280 had to, you know, it had to account for stuff 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.280 that could be in our solar system passing in front 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:34.400 of the telescope and give us false positives that kind 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:36.760 of thing. They had to prove that this thing would 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:40.280 work out there in orbit and we wouldn't have false 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:45.360 positives giving us wrong information. So two thousand rolls around 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.320 and kept where it gets proposed one more time because 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:50.560 an engineers had already built a test bed and they 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:54.440 proved that it could in fact operate satisfactory fact factorily 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:57.720 in our solar system even with the noise. So two 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.760 thousand rolls around. It comes time to suggest missions again. 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:04.360 And the way NASA works is that you propose missions, 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:07.080 and you have all these different departments proposing missions, and 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:09.680 NASA will only select a few, and even the few 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:13.600 they select, typically they compete with one another to actually 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:16.240 get funding. So just because you get selected doesn't mean 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:18.560 that it's gonna happen. It just means that they'll listen 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.040 to you, right, they don't dismiss you out of hand. 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.720 So two thousand rolls around, Keptli gets proposed one more time. 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.920 This time it's selected as one of three proposals out 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:30.480 of a total of twenty six to compete for NASA approval, 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.080 and in two thousand and one it one that approval. 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:36.800 It became Discovery Mission number ten. So it is a 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:42.240 Discovery class spacecraft. I learned that today. I didn't know 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:44.840 it was a discovery class because we're gonna talk about 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.600 a successor to Kepler. That's an explorer class, which makes 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:51.000 me totally makes me think Star Trek. That's what I'm 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:53.680 always like on the start of the classes Trek. You've 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:56.400 got like the Constitution class, that's what the Enterprise is. 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.240 You've got the h what is the I can't remember 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:02.280 what the USS roll Aliance classes now, Oh, it's gonna 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:06.720 kill me. Declaration class. No. No, But there's a there's 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.560 a whole series like the Constitution class, the you know, 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:14.119 the Constellation class, which was the excelsior Um that was 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.760 supposed to be the replacement for the Constitution class in 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:20.640 the original series. But yeah, they have different classes of StarCraft. Um, 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.240 just like in real life, we actually do have different 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.840 classes of StarCraft. Well, the actual work on the mission 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.800 began in two thousand two, and that started with them 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:33.760 placing orders for the detectors, the light sensors. The telescope 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:38.000 was launched on March sixth, two thousand nine. So this 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:40.600 is a journey that started back in nineteen seventy one 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:44.320 with this proposal of how to detect a planet transiting 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.639 its SOH star and culminating with the launch in two 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:51.639 thousand nine. So, the diameter of this telescope, it's just 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.120 shy of a meter. It's point nine five meters, which 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:56.439 is a little more than three feet. And then the 0:17:56.480 --> 0:18:01.320 camera has a ninety five megapixel a A. So if 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:03.840 you're thinking like, oh, I've got a camera that's twelve megapixels, 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:08.360 this one's it can continuously monitor the brightness of more 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:13.240 than one hundred thousand stars. Yeah, and it's still just 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.200 looking at a tiny portion of our galaxy, right, A 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:18.800 hundred thousand in the grand scheme of things is nothing. 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.040 It's a big number to us, but in the galaxy terms, 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.240 it's it's a drop in the bucket. So it's now 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.960 part of the Exo Planet Exploration Program office. It was 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.359 transferred over to that office. That office is part of 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:38.240 the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Now, we talked earlier about how 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:43.399 before this announcement was made, the number of verified exo 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:48.520 planets was around four. The way that that had worked 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:52.040 was that Kepler would detect a transit signal something that 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:54.760 looked like it was potentially a planet, and then you 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.760 would have to do lots of follow up observations to 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:00.600 make sure that what was detected was in fact a 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:02.800 planet passing in front of a star. Well, and in 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.359 the past, a lot of the ways of detecting exo 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:08.360 planets weren't necessarily the transit method, right. You might look 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.040 at the start to see if it is wobbling, for example, 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.600 to the gravitational influence of an orbiting body, right, yeah, there, 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.560 And that would also be used to back up any 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.320 any UH observations that the Kepler telescope made. It wasn't 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:23.320 just that they were using the Kepler telescope over and 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.240 over again to make sure that this thing was actually 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.120 repeating itself. They were using other methods to verify that, 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:31.199 which means meant to take a took a lot of 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:33.720 time and effort. UH, and it meant that the whole 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:39.880 process was relatively slow, and that's why we had four. 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:43.720 Four is awesome, but it's relatively tiny, right, it's a 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:47.320 tiny number. So when they came out in in May 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.600 of TWI sixteen and said, hey, we've got a thousand, 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:55.040 two d eighty four new exo planets confirmed and probably 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:59.760 a few hundred more UH that that I haven't been 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.200 firmed yet but are very potentially planets, that was a 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:06.440 huge deal. It was more than twice the number, right, 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:09.760 so or more than doubled, rather the number of exoplants. 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:11.919 It wasn't more than twice the previous number, and more 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:15.840 than doubled the total number. And in this this jump 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.480 in in this number is due to a new approach 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:21.560 that they've been using to look, yeah, this is interesting 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.600 rather right. Yeah. So so before they were just making 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:30.200 lots of repeated observations to UH to make sure that 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:35.200 the initial UH observation was relevant. Right now, what they're 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:39.120 doing is using statistical probability UH. And it was spearheaded 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:44.280 by an associate research scholar at Princeton University named Timothy Morton. 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:48.840 And this is where we get that greater than confidence 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:50.919 level that Joe was talking about at the top of 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:55.919 the show. So essentially you can break it down into 0:20:56.560 --> 0:21:00.520 a pretty simple concept. You take the level of confidence 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.000 you feel that the transit signal in fact represents a 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:07.199 planet because it looks like a planet signal. And then 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:10.320 you take the amount of confidence you feel that it 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:13.520 is not an impostor what they call an impostor, which 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.200 is be a false positive. And then you assign a 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:19.760 number between zero and one, which ends up being that percentage, 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:23.080 and anything that is greater than a point nine nine 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.200 you feel, I'm pretty confident that's a planet. Because we've 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:30.480 taken the other factors into account and we're still ninety 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:34.439 more than sure that this signal represents a planet, we 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:37.680 feel confident enough to say it is now a verified planet. 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.080 The big advantage of this approach is you can apply 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.400 it across all the signals that you're looking at. You're 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:48.440 not going one by one to verify. And that's why 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:53.080 we got a sudden like burst of verified planets all 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:58.159 at once. And that is a pretty phenomenal moment in 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:03.440 science and and a love that we can use statistical analysis. 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:10.280 Two feel as confident as we possibly can be without 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:15.560 having that multiple backup approach of of uh lots of 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:20.600 different observations to uh end up, you know, confirming what 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:23.240 we have thought we found. It's cool to me that 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:27.960 we can do that just through this probabilistic approach. Now, 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:32.280 the other interesting part here is that we mentioned they 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:38.200 found more candidates for potentially rocky planets in the habitable 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:41.880 or goldilocks zone around their host stars. Yeah, almost five 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:46.119 and fifty of the newly discovered or newly verified group 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:50.040 could be considered rocky planets like Earth. End of those, 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:53.639 as we mentioned earlier, nine are considered to occupy the 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:56.160 habitable zone, which is the distance from the host star 0:22:56.240 --> 0:22:59.040 that would allow temperatures at which liquid water could collect 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:02.360 on the surface. And you might think, oh, well, why 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:04.840 don't you just go ahead and give us distances. Well, 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:07.840 that's because it depends also upon the nature of the 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:11.520 host star, right, because some stars are giving off more 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:15.800 energy than our son does, and therefore you have to 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:18.040 take that into account how far away the planet should be. 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:20.440