The Kepler space telescope stopped collecting data in 2018, but remains a source of discoveries. To date, Kepler’s data contain the largest collection of exoplanets and exoplanet candidates. NASA scientists have reanalyzed the telescope’s data archive and produced an updated catalog of stars, systems and exoplanets, including previously unknown planets. this has been discovered.

In particular, the discovery of a new version of the catalog is the star system Kepler-385. In 2014, an orbiting telescope discovered four exoplanets in this system. Analysis using new stellar data, which mainly takes into account data collected by the European astronomical telescope Gaia, has identified three additional exoplanets in the Kepler-385 system. We recall, the Kepler telescope determined the presence of exoplanets using the transit method – by changing the brightness of the star and estimating the time of decrease in brightness when an invisible planet is in the sky. normal conditions pass through its original disc in front of it. star. The accuracy of these measurements increases as the precision of measuring stellar parameters increases. The Kepler-385 system, located 4,670 light-years away, has seven observed planets, making it rare. Today, very few multiplanetary systems of this type have been discovered.

One of the advantages of this discovery is that we can directly determine the orbital eccentricity of exoplanets. For a planet that we cannot see directly, this is almost impossible to achieve. But for a planetary system with many transiting planets (planets), the shape of the orbits is relatively simple to determine. Therefore, measuring the orbits of the exoplanets of the Kepler-385 system shows that they all have nearly circular orbits. This confirms the previous model’s result that the more planets there are in a system, the less elongated their orbits are.

From the standpoint of the search for extraterrestrial life, the seven planets of the Kepler-385 system barely fit into our understanding. They are all too close to their star and clearly receive most of the radiation in the form of heat, ultraviolet light and radiation. The new edition of the updated catalog of exoplanets found by the Kepler telescope is a publication with the best data structure that will help you make many astronomical discoveries without leaving your desk. Modern astronomical instruments collect so much data that the scientific community does not have time to process it, even with the help of supercomputers.