NASA's Kepler Mission (Fig. 1) has been wildly successful in discovering exoplanets. This paper summarizes the mission goals, briefly explains the transit method of finding exoplanets and design of the mission, provides some key findings, and describes useful education materials available at the Kepler website.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Kepler Participating Scientist Program NNX12AC76G)

In spring 2013, the President's budget proposal restructured the nation's approach to STEM education, eliminating similar to$50M of NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) funding with the intent of transferring it to the Dept. of Education, National Science Foundation, and Smithsonian Institution. As a result, Education and Public Outreach (EPO) would no longer be a NASA mission requirement and funds that had already been competed, awarded, and productively utilized were lost. Since 1994, partnerships of scientists, engineers, and education specialists were required to create innovative approaches to EPO, providing a direct source of inspiration for today's youth that may now be lost. Although seldom discussed or evaluated, "inspiration" is the beginning of lasting education. For decades, NASA's crewed and robotic missions have motivated students of all ages and have demonstrated a high degree of leverage in society. Through personal experiences we discuss (1) the importance of inspiration in education, (2) how NASA plays a vital role in STEM education, (3) examples of high leverage educational materials showing why NASA should continue embedding EPO specialists within mission teams, and (4) how we can document the role of inspiration. We believe that personal histories are an important means of assessing the success of EPO. We hope this discussion will lead other people to document similar stories of educational success and perhaps to undertake longitudinal studies of the impact of inspiration.

The Kepler mission has discovered more than 2500 exoplanet candidates in the first two years of spacecraft data, with approximately 40% of those in candidate multi-planet systems. The high rate of multiplicity combined with the low rate of identified false positives indicates that the multiplanet systems contain very few false positive signals due to other systems not gravitationally bound to the target star. False positives in the multi-planet systems are identified and removed, leaving behind a residual population of candidate multi-planet transiting systems expected to have a false positive rate less than 1%. We present a sample of 340 planetary systems that contain 851 planets that are validated to substantially better than the 99% confidence level; the vast majority of these have not been previously verified as planets. We expect ∼two unidentified false positives making our sample of planet very reliable. We present fundamental planetary properties of our sample based on a comprehensive analysis of Kepler light curves, ground-based spectroscopy, and high-resolution imaging. Since we do not require spectroscopy or high-resolution imaging for validation, some of our derived parameters for a planetary system may be systematically incorrect due to dilution from light due to additional stars in the photometric aperture. Nonetheless, our result nearly doubles the number verified exoplanets.

We report on the masses, sizes, and orbits of the planets orbiting 22 Kepler stars. There are 49 planet candidates around these stars, including 42 detected through transits and 7 revealed by precise Doppler measurements of the host stars. Based on an analysis of the Kepler brightness measurements, along with high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy, Doppler spectroscopy, and (for 11 stars) asteroseismology, we establish low false-positive probabilities (FPPs) for all of the transiting planets (41 of 42 have an FPP under 1%), and we constrain their sizes and masses. Most of the transiting planets are smaller than three times the size of Earth. For 16 planets, the Doppler signal was securely detected, providing a direct measurement of the planet's mass. For the other 26 planets we provide either marginal mass measurements or upper limits to their masses and densities; in many cases we can rule out a rocky composition. We identify six planets with densities above 5 g cm−3, suggesting a mostly rocky interior for them. Indeed, the only planets that are compatible with a purely rocky composition are smaller than ∼2 R⊕. Larger planets evidently contain a larger fraction of low-density material (H, He, and H2O).

New transiting planet candidates are identified in 16 months (2009 May-2010 September) of data from the Kepler spacecraft. Nearly 5000 periodic transit-like signals are vetted against astrophysical and instrumental false positives yielding 1108 viable new planet candidates, bringing the total count up to over 2300. Improved vetting metrics are employed, contributing to higher catalog reliability. Most notable is the noise-weighted robust averaging of multiquarter photo-center offsets derived from difference image analysis that identifies likely background eclipsing binaries. Twenty-two months of photometry are used for the purpose of characterizing each of the candidates. Ephemerides (transit epoch, T-0, and orbital period, P) are tabulated as well as the products of light curve modeling: reduced radius (R-P / R-star), reduced semimajor axis (d / R-star), and impact parameter (b). The largest fractional increases are seen for the smallest planet candidates (201% for candidates smaller than 2R(circle plus). compared to 53% for candidates larger than 2R.) and those at longer orbital periods (124% for candidates outside of 50 day orbits versus 86% for candidates inside of 50 day orbits). The gains are larger than expected from increasing the observing window from 13 months (Quarters 1-5) to 16 months (Quarters 1-6) even in regions of parameter space where one would have expected the previous catalogs to be complete. Analyses of planet frequencies based on previous catalogs will be affected by such incompleteness. The fraction of all planet candidate host stars with multiple candidates has grown from 17% to 20%, and the paucity of short-period giant planets in multiple systems is still evident. The progression toward smaller planets at longer orbital periods with each new catalog release suggests that Earth-size planets in the habitable zone are forthcoming if, indeed, such planets are abundant.

We present the detection of five planets--Kepler-62b, c, d, e, and f--of size 1.31, 0.54, 1.95, 1.61 and 1.41 Earth radii (R⊕), orbiting a K2V star at periods of 5.7, 12.4, 18.2, 122.4, and 267.3 days, respectively. The outermost planets, Kepler-62e and -62f, are super-Earth-size (1.25 R⊕ < planet radius ≤ 2.0 R⊕) planets in the habitable zone of their host star, respectively receiving 1.2 ± 0.2 times and 0.41 ± 0.05 times the solar flux at Earth's orbit. Theoretical models of Kepler-62e and -62f for a stellar age of ~7 billion years suggest that both planets could be solid, either with a rocky composition or composed of mostly solid water in their bulk.

, 583 (2013); 340 Science et al. R. Islam Interactions in a Quantum Simulator Emergence and Frustration of Magnetism with Variable-Range This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. clicking here. colleagues, clients, or customers by , you can order high-quality copies for your If you wish to distribute this article to others here. following the guidelines can be obtained by Permission to republish or repurpose articles or portions of articles ): October 13, 2013 www.sciencemag.org (this information is current as of The following resources related to this article are available online at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6132/583.full.html version of this article at: including high-resolution figures, can be found in the online Updated information and services, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2013/05/01/340.6132.583.DC1.html can be found at: Supporting Online Material http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/collection/physics Physics subject collections: This article appears in the following

A search of the time-series photometry from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft reveals a transiting planet candidate orbiting the 11th magnitude G5 dwarf KIC 10593626 with a period of 290 days. The characteristics of the host star are well constrained by high-resolution spectroscopy combined with an asteroseismic analysis of the Kepler photometry, leading to an estimated mass and radius of 0.970 ± 0.060 M and 0.979 ± 0.020 R . The depth of 492 ± 10 ppm for the three observed transits yields a radius of 2.38 ± 0.13 Re for the planet. The system passes a battery of tests for false positives, including reconnaissance spectroscopy, high-resolution imaging, and centroid motion. A full BLENDER analysis provides further validation of the planet interpretation by showing that contamination of the target by an eclipsing system would rarely mimic the observed shape of the transits. The final validation of the planet is provided by 16 radial velocities (RVs) obtained with the High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer on Keck I over a one-year span. Although the velocities do not lead to a reliable orbit and mass determination, they are able to constrain the mass to a 3σ upper limit of 124 M⊕, safely in the regime of planetary masses, thus earning the

A search of the time-series photometry from NASA's Kepler spacecraft reveals a transiting planet candidate orbiting the 11th magnitude G5 dwarf KIC 10593626 with a period of 290 days. The characteristics of the host star are well constrained by high-resolution spectroscopy combined with an asteroseismic analysis of the Kepler photometry, leading to an estimated mass and radius of 0.970 +/- 0.060 M-circle dot and 0.979 +/- 0.020 R-circle dot. The depth of 492 +/- 10 ppm for the three observed transits yields a radius of 2.38 +/- 0.13 Re for the planet. The system passes a battery of tests for false positives, including reconnaissance spectroscopy, high-resolution imaging, and centroid motion. A full BLENDER analysis provides further validation of the planet interpretation by showing that contamination of the target by an eclipsing system would rarely mimic the observed shape of the transits. The final validation of the planet is provided by 16 radial velocities (RVs) obtained with the High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer on Keck I over a one-year span. Although the velocities do not lead to a reliable orbit and mass determination, they are able to constrain the mass to a 3 sigma upper limit of 124 M-circle plus, safely in the regime of planetary masses, thus earning the designation Kepler-22b. The radiative equilibrium temperature is 262 K for a planet in Kepler-22b's orbit. Although there is no evidence that Kepler-22b is a rocky planet, it is the first confirmed planet with a measured radius to orbit in the habitable zone of any star other than the Sun.

clicking here. colleagues, clients, or customers by , you can order high-quality copies for your If you wish to distribute this article to others here. following the guidelines can be obtained by Permission to republish or repurpose articles or portions of articles ): September 24, 2012 www.sciencemag.org (this information is current as of The following resources related to this article are available online at