Kepler Space Mission: Add Your Name to the DVD that will Accompany the Search for Earth-like Planets Beyond Our Solar System

"It could happen almost any time now. We now have the technological capability to identify Earth-like planets around the smallest stars."

David Latham -Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

NASA plans to launch millions of names into space as part of the Kepler Mission to find planets in a habitable zone beyond our solar system. "This mission will provide our first knowledge of Earth-like planets beyond our solar system," Kepler Mission principal investigator William Borucki said in a news announcement.

NASA will launch millions of names into space through a program aimed at encouraging public participation in space exploration.

Anyone can submit their name and their home state or country and be included on a DVD that will launch beyond our solar system as part of NASA's Kepler Mission next year. Participants can include an explanation, of up to 500 words, explaining why they think the mission is important.

NASA has launched names into space before, but the Kepler spacecraft will search for planets in a habitable zone beyond our solar system. According to NASA scientists, habitable worlds are most likely found on large, rocky planets that are up to ten times the size of Earth and contain plate tectonics.

Plate tectonics play a critical role in determining the rate of cooling of a potentially habitable planet by creating the optimum temperature ranges for the development of intelligent animal life -as continents grow, planets cool.

The researchers found that super-Earths, or planets up to ten times the size of the Earth are the best places to find extraterrestrial life. These planets contain a solid inner core that is surrounded by a liquid mantle, and on top a crust. What is seen as critical to life on one of these large extra-solar planets (exoplanets)—or planets circling a star other then the Sun—is the presence of plate tectonics.

"This mission will provide our first knowledge of Earth-like planets beyond our solar system," Kepler Mission principal investigator William Borucki said in a news announcement.

The names included in the exploration will be recorded on a DVD, mounted outside the spacecraft, posted on the Kepler Mission Web site, and sent to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

Participants will be able to print certificates stating that their name has been included on the list of names launched into orbit around the sun. Participation and the certificates, from the Kepler Mission Web site, are free.

David Koch, deputy principal investigator for the Kepler Mission, said there is no limit on the number of names.

"We're looking for several million names," Koch said in a news announcement. "The only limitation is people's interest."

The launch is planned for February 2009 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The deadline for submissions is Nov. 1.

The "Names in Space" effort will mark the International Year of Astronomy 2009, which will recognize Johannes Kepler's publication of his first two laws of planetary motion on the publication's 400th anniversary.

To submit names and learn more about the Kepler Mission, visit:

http://kepler.nasa.gov/

For more information about NASA programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

Posted by Casey Kazan.

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Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos Revisited -NASA's Phoenix Probe & the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
New SETI Observatory Created by Microsoft's Co-founder
Cruising the Goldilocks Zone -The Search for "Super-Earths"
Non-Carbon Lifeforms -Why We May Overlook
The Milky Way Enigma -How Galactic Forces May Control Life on Earth
 Earth's Twin Habitable?

Comments

[Hamy]

Will NASA guarantee that no third party, now or in the future, will use my name inappropriately?
I would hate to be the first to suffer interplanetary identity theft.

[Biff]

Interesting article; however, the two assertions of plate tectonics being important interspersed with general mission details, and never summarizing why it is believed that plate tectonics are important to the formation of life left me a bit wanting.

I'll read up on it, but unfortunately, I have to do so elsewhere :(

[knoxvilledaniel]

Interesting idea. I believe terrestrial names have been included on similar missions before, such as a micro - fiche included on the Viking Lander & signatures included in the Voyager record - Of interest to extra - terrestrial graphologists, no doubt !! If they ask for credit / debit card numbers or SS numbers, I'm not playing.

To try to answer Biff's question -
I think it's believed that plate tectonics are linked to release of certain vital gases into the atmosphere of terrestrial - type planets. That was from another article.