Free Astronomy Magazine July-August 2014

INSTRUMENTS conducted a series of tests to verify the fea- sibility of this unex- pected extension of the Kepler mission, called “K2”, to dif- ferentiate it from the original “Kepler Prime" mission. On 8 March, K2 began an intensive observational cam- paign, “Campaign 0”, a comprehensive trial run lasted about fifty days. On 16 May, the K2 mission was practi- cally ready to start the first official observa- tion campaigns selec- ted by the NASA Se- nior Review Panel, an experts’ panel whose task is to evaluate the importance of scien- tific research programs – based on the possi- ble returns that can be achieved – and funding proposals thereof. On 30 May, the engineers began “Campaign 1”, set to end on 1 August, aimed at the observation of a region of the sky close to the galactic north pole. Subsequent campaigns (5 have so far been scheduled of the 8-9 foreseen in the two years funded by NASA with $4 million) will have among their targets also some famous star clusters such as the Hya- des, Pleiades, Praesepe and M67. Partic- ular attention will be dedicated to the many red dwarfs scattered in the vicinity of the ecliptic and to their possible short- period planets in transit across the stellar disk, for which the average 75-80 days du- ration of the observing campaigns are suf- ficient to verify their existence. Already planned are also observations of densely populated stellar fields in the middle of the Milky Way and at higher latitudes in both hemispheres. Outside our stellar sys- tem, Kepler will observe galaxies, active galactic nuclei and supernovae, and there is still more space for new proposals, cur- rently under consideration by the experts. H ere we can see which way Kepler will be pointing along its orbit and how it will frame the fields to be stud- ied. It is necessary to find the best compromise be- tween harnessing the pressure of the Sun's radia- tion, orienting the solar panels in the most suit- able manner and limit to less than 3 months the pointing on each field, so as to pre- vent sunlight from entering the telescope. [Steve B. Howell et al.] T he observa- tion campaigns planned as part of the K2 mission dur- ing the 2 years in which Kepler will be kept operation- al (some are yet to be confirmed in detail). It is not yet certain wheth- er this operation period will be ex- tended further.