Basri, Gibor

Contact Email:
Institute: UC Berkeley
Research URL:http://astro.berkeley.edu/~basri/
Subject Area: Instrumentation: Space Based
Waveband: Optical
Technique: Photometry
Presentation: Poster Display
Title: Stellar Variability and the Kepler Mission
Abstract: NASA is currently considering the Kepler mission, which will gather photometry on a large number of stars with unprecedented accuracy over unprecedented timescale. The primary purpose of the mission is to find planetary systems by the transit method, including terrestrial planets. One concern is that stellar variability serves as a noise source for these observations. I discuss the extent of this problem, and argue that there will be a large pool of targets for which stellar variability will be benign enough to allow the transit experiment to succeed. I also point out the amazing opportunity this dataset will afford the Cool Stars community. We will be able to accumulate activity histories: easily track single small spots and plage, for thousands of stars continuously for years. Stellar rotations, binary systems, activity cycles, levels of inhomogeneity, flaring rates, and a host of other stellar parameters will be studied in a new and powerful way. A guest observer program has been proposed.