What is "kepler"

Kepler is a space observatory launched by NASA to discover Earth-size planets orbiting other stars. Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched on March 7, 2009, into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit.

Designed to survey a portion of our region of the Milky Way to discover Earth-size exoplanets in or near habitable zones and estimate how many of the billions of stars in the Milky Way have such planets, Kepler sole science instrument is a photometer that continually monitors the brightness of over 145,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view. This data is transmitted to Earth, then analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by exoplanets that cross in front of their host star.

Kepler is part of NASA's Discovery Program of relatively low-cost, focused primary science missions. The telescope's construction and initial operation were managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with Ball Aerospace responsible for developing the Kepler flight system. The Ames Research Center is responsible for the ground system development, mission operations since December 2009, and scientific data analysis. The initial planned lifetime was 3.5 years, but greater-than-expected noise in the data, from both the stars and the spacecraft, meant additional time was needed to fulfill all mission goals. Initially, in 2012, the mission was expected to be extended until 2016, but on July 14, 2012, one of the spacecraft's four reaction wheels used for pointing the spacecraft stopped turning, and completing the mission would only be possible if all other reaction wheels remained reliable. Then, on May 11, 2013, a second reaction wheel failed, disabling the collection of science data and threatening the continuation of the mission.

On August 15, 2013, NASA announced that they had given up trying to fix the two failed reaction wheels. This meant the current mission needed to be modified, but it did not necessarily mean the end of planet hunting. NASA had asked the space science community to propose alternative mission plans "potentially including an exoplanet search, using the remaining two good reaction wheels and thrusters". On November 18, 2013, the K2 "Second Light" proposal was reported. This would include utilizing the disabled Kepler in a way that could detect habitable planets around smaller, dimmer red dwarfs. On May 16, 2014, NASA announced the approval of the K2 extension.

, Kepler and its follow-up observations had found 1,013 confirmed exoplanets in about 440 star systems, along with a further 3,199 unconfirmed planet candidates. Four planets have been confirmed through Kepler K2 mission. In November 2013, astronomers estimated, based on Kepler space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion rocky, Earth-size exoplanets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarfs within the Milky Way. It is estimated that 11 billion of these planets may be orbiting Sun-like stars. The nearest such planet may be away, according to the scientists.

On January 6, 2015, NASA announced the 1,000th confirmed exoplanet discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope. Four of the newly confirmed exoplanets were found to orbit within habitable zones of their related stars: three of the four, Kepler-438b, Kepler-442b and Kepler-452b, are almost Earth-size and likely rocky; the fourth, Kepler-440b, is a super-Earth. On May 10, 2016, NASA verified 1,284 new exoplanets found by Kepler, the single largest finding of planets to date.

Since 1988, over 3,000 exoplanets have been confirmed by all detection methods, including the Kepler mission, (specifically, planets in planetary systems, including multiple planetary systems, have been confirmed, as of ).

Kepler most often refers to Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), a key figure in the scientific revolution, or things named after him, see list of things named after Johannes Kepler.

Kepler may also refer to:

Kepler was a Canadian indie rock band formed in 1997 from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Kepler initially garnered attention for its exceptionally slow and quiet sound, reminiscent of groups such as Low, Codeine, and Bedhead.

Kepler is a crater in the Eridania quadrangle on Mars. Located at 46.8° S, 140.9° E, Kepler is wide and was named in 1973, in honor of the astronomer Johannes Kepler. On March 25, 2006 a section of the floor of Kepler was photographed by the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Image:Kepler Crater.JPG|Kepler Crater showing dust devil tracks, as seen by Mars Global Surveyor. Image:Chart 29- Eridania.JPG|Map of Eridania quadrangle with major craters. Kepler is near center.

Kepler is a novel by John Banville, first published in 1981.

In Kepler Banville recreates Prague despite never having been there when he wrote it. A historical novel, it won the 1981 Guardian Fiction Prize.

Kepler is the twelfth studio album by the Singaporean Mandopop female singer Stefanie Sun. It was released on Feb 27, 2014 by Universal Music Taiwan, three years after her last album, It's Time.

Kepler (Latin Keplerus) is a lunar impact crater that lies between the Oceanus Procellarum to the west and Mare Insularum in the east. To the southeast is the crater Encke.

Kepler is most notable for the prominent ray system that covers the surrounding mare. The rays extend for well over 300 kilometers, overlapping the rays from other craters. Kepler has a small rampart of ejecta surrounding the exterior of its high rim. The outer wall is not quite circular, and possesses a slightly polygonal form. The interior walls of Kepler are slumped and slightly terraced, descending to an uneven floor and a minor central rise.

One of the rays from Tycho, when extended across the Oceanus Procellarum, intersects this crater. This was a factor in the choice of the crater's name when Giovanni Riccioli was creating his system of lunar nomenclature, as Kepler used the observations of Tycho Brahe while devising his three laws of planetary motion. On Riccioli's maps, this crater was named Keplerus, and the surrounding skirt of higher albedo terrain was named Insulara Ventorum.

Due to its prominent rays, Kepler is mapped as part of the Copernican System.

Kepler is a free software project written in Lua that provides a portable, extensible website development platform. Current stable release is Kepler 1.1.1, for Lua 5.1. Kepler works on Windows and most variants of Unix.

The platform was designed to work with a number of web serving environments, called "launchers" in Kepler terminology. Kepler includes launchers for Apache ( mod lua), FastCGI, CGI, ISAPI as well as a native web server written in pure Lua, called Xavante 1.

Kepler is an opera by Philip Glass set to a libretto in German and Latin by Martina Winkel. It premiered on 20 September 2009 at the Landestheater in the Austrian city of Linz with Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Bruckner Orchestra. Its libretto is based on the life and work of Johannes Kepler, the 16th and 17th century mathematician and astronomer. The work was commissioned by the Linz Landestheater and Linz09 (a programme celebrating the city's designation as a European Capital of Culture). The opera was performed in the USA for the first time in May 2012 at the Spoleto Festival. Conducted by John Kennedy, directed by Sam Helfrich and with an English translation by Saskia M. Wesnigk-Wood.

This is the third opera by Glass to be inspired by a physicist, after Einstein on the Beach (1976) and Galileo Galilei (2002).

Kepler is both a surname and a masculine given name. Notable people with the name include:

Surname:

• Angela Kepler (born 1943), New Zealand-born American writer
• Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer
• Katharina Kepler (1546–1622), German witch
• Lars Kepler, the pen name for writers Alexander Ahndoril and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril
• Max Kepler (born 1993), German baseball player
• Shell Kepler (1958–2008), American actress

Given name:

• Kepler Bradley (born 1985), Australian rules footballer
• Kepler Engelbrecht, German software developer
• Kepler Orellana (born 1977), Venezuelan tennis player
• Kepler Wessels (born 1957), South African cricketer
• Képler Laveran Lima Ferreira (born 1983), Brazilian-born Portuguese footballer (a.k.a. Pepe)

Kepler is the codename for a GPU microarchitecture developed by Nvidia as the successor to the Fermi microarchitecture. Kepler is Nvidia's first microarchitecture to focus on energy efficiency. Most GeForce 600 series, most GeForce 700 series, and some GeForce 800M series GPUs were based on Kepler, all manufactured in 28 nm. Kepler also found use in the GK20A, the GPU component of the Tegra K1 SoC, as well as in the Quadro Kxxx series, the Quadro NVS 510, and Nvidia Tesla computing modules. Kepler was followed by the Maxwell microarchitecture and used alongside Maxwell in the GeForce 700 series and GeForce 800M series.

The architecture is named after Johannes Kepler, a German mathematician and key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution.

Kepler is a nonprofit higher education program that operates a university campus in Kigali, Rwanda. It is one of the first programs worldwide to integrate massive open online courses (MOOCs), flip teaching, and other education technology practices into a blended learning curriculum, with the goal of lowering the cost of higher education without a reduction in academic quality or outcomes. All graduates of the program receive an accredited U.S. degree through Southern New Hampshire University’s competency-based program, College for America.

Kepler is funded primarily through a grant from the IKEA Foundation. In April 2014, Christopher Hedrick joined the organization as its CEO.