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[Music]

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we have an innate curiosity

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about our origins

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is life in our galaxy

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common

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does it exist are we alone how unique is

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life here on earth

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the kepler mission is one step

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[Music]

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kepler mission

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is a huge step forward in answering the

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question

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what is our place in the universe

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the kepler mission is nasa's first

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mission capable of finding earth-like

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planets orbiting

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other stars in the galaxy

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in a region around the star we call the

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habitable zone

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water will be if you can find liquid

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water on the surface we think we may

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very well find life there so that zone

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is not too close to the star because

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it's too hot the water boils not too far

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away where the water is condensed in the

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ice covered plant covered with glaciers

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it's the goldilocks zone not too hot not

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the primary science goal of kepler is to

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answer the question if earth-like

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planets in our galaxy are common or rare

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kepler is going to detect planets via

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the transit method

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what we aim to do is to measure the

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brightnesses of stars very very

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accurately for a very long period of

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time without blinking

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so that when the planet passes in front

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of the star

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the light output from the star is going

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to dim just a little bit that star is

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going to blink for about 12 hours

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and we will be able to measure that dip

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in brightness and it's that dip that we

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call a transit

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kepler is a different animal from the

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hubble space telescope or the spitzer

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infrared telescope because it doesn't

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take pictures you won't see beautiful

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images that you see from hubble because

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we're not doing that kind of science

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those types of missions like hubble and

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spitzer are designed to focus on

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specific targets

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if you hold your hand

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at arm's length with a grain of salt or

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a grain of sand that's about how much of

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the sky you can see

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with a normal astronomical telescope at

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any one time kepler has a field of view

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that's

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10 degrees by 10 degrees our field of

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view is about as big as your hand at

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arm's length covering the sky

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so rather than taking pictures of very

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concentrated parts of the sky we're

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looking at taking a very broad snapshot

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of a lot of stars

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kepler takes really fuzzy pictures but

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the thing that kepler is designed to do

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and it does very well is look for very

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small variations in the brightness of

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the stars an earth-like planet passing

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in front of a sun-like star

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is going to cause the brightness of that

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star to dim by only one part per ten

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thousand

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that's like looking at a headlight from

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a great distance and trying to sense the

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brightness change when a flea crawls

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across the surface

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but the kepler instrument is designed to

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detect such small changes in brightness

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the kepler sensors are ccds

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the ccd in your camera is about

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the size of one of your small

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fingernails

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the ccd chips on kepler are a couple of

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inches square in pairs

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and there's 42 of those

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in your camera you might have a few

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megapixels if you have a really nice

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camera you might have 10 megapixels

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we have 96 million pixels and they have

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very low noise so we can find very small

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planets

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once kepler is launched from the earth

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it will go into what's called an earth

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trailing orbit

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astronomers call that a heliocentric

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orbit which means sun-centered orbit it

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looks at the stars continuously day and

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night 365 days a year and it slowly

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moves away from the earth orbiting the

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sun by itself

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and from there we'll point itself at the

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kepler field and stare

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at the kepler field nearly without

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blinking for three and a half years at

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least maybe longer if we have an

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extended mission

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kepler will be looking in a region of

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the sky that you'll see almost every

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night in the summertime the field of

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view is kind of nestled underneath the

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wing of cygnus the swan between cygnus

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and lyra

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now in that area of sky

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there are something like six and a half

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million stars

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why do we need so many

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because of the way kepler looks for

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planets we have to have planetary

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systems that are lined up so that the

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planet actually passes between the star

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and kepler telescope in its orbit the

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probability of that happening if you

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just throw stars randomly down in our

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galaxy is something like one to ten

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percent it's small

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so of those six and a half million

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scattered over that 100 square degrees

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only maybe 200 000 are interesting to us

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we select 170 000 or so that are most

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suitable to look at for planets with the

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kepler telescope

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finally we expect to end up with

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somewhere between a few hundred and a

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few thousand

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signals that are really planets around

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well this is the first time that

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photometry the measurement of the

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brightness of stars will ever be done at

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this level of precision

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and it will be done simultaneously on

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more than 100 000 stars continuously

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over a period of years

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we're somewhat like pioneers very much

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like the explorers that were looking for

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new lands to settle and that's how i see

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what we're doing we're looking in this

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region of our galaxy for other habitable

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worlds

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i think people everywhere want to know

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whether with all the stars out there do

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they have planets that are earth-sized

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are earth frequent or are they rare

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and this gives us that answer

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it's the next step mankind's exploration

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of the galaxy

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there's two extreme answers that kepler

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might give us

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it might tell us that there's an

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earth-like planet practically around

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every star we look at

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imagine

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the possibilities for for life in the

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galaxy or life in the universe if on the

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other hand we found out that earth was

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very special and that the typical star

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like the sun is not

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hosting planets like the earth i think

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that would be a real surprise as well

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and would really make us

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reconsider the special nature of earth

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we are now finally at the point where

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our technology allows us to build a

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machine

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that can make the observations to

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scientifically answer this question

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how many stars like the sun did develop

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planets around them like the earth

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i think that's such an important

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question to everyone and so interesting

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that we really have to do it and it's a