So, the researchers had to develop new techniques to look for signals in the Kepler data.Ĭalling Kepler an "elderly" telescope, study lead Iain McDonald, of the University of Manchester, described the signals as "extremely difficult to find," especially with the telescope's "blurred" vision and since many other objects were in its vision. It's rarely used to spot lensing events caused by planets because they are smaller, so the signals they create aren't as noticeable.Īlthough the Kepler Mission was specifically used to survey our area of the Milky Way in order to find other planets potentially in the habitable zone, it was not designed to find planets using microlensing or to look at the "extremely dense star fields" in the inner Galaxy, RAS said. The method is typically used by astronomers to observe distant stars using closer stars. Among the newly-observed events, four candidates were consistent with that of free-floating planets with masses similar to that of Earth. The team spotted a total of 27 short-lived microlensing signals, most of which were previously observed but five of them were new. During the campaign, Kepler focused on an area with millions of stars close to the center of our galaxy to spot "rare" gravitational microlensing events. The retired telescope helped a team of researchers find evidence of a population of rogue planets free-floating in our galaxy.įor a new study, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), researchers used the data obtained by the retired Kepler Space Telescope in 2016 during the K2 mission, RAS said in a news release. The Kepler Space Telescope has just proved that even an "elderly" telescope with "blurred vision" can help provide valuable scientific information.
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