Zusammenfassung
A re-purposed Kepler mission could continue the search for nearly Earth-sized
planets in very short-period (< 1 day) orbits. Recent surveys of the Kepler
data already available have revealed at least a dozen such planetary
candidates, and a more complete and focused survey is likely to reveal more.
Given the planets' short orbital periods, building the requisite
signal-to-noise to detect the candidates by stacking multiple transits requires
a much shorter observational baseline than for longer-period planets, and the
transits are likely more robust against the much larger instrumental variations
anticipated for the modified Kepler pointing capabilities. Searching for these
unusual planets will also leverage the Kepler mission's already considerable
expertise in planetary transit detection and analysis. These candidates may
represent an entirely new class of planet. They may also provide unprecedented
insights into planet formation and evolution and sensitive probes for
planet-star interactions and the stellar wind. Whatever their origins and
natures, such planets would be particularly amenable to discovery by the
planned TESS mission, and a preliminary survey by Kepler could pave the way for
such TESS discoveries.
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