Exoplanet Discovery in the Kepler and K2 Missions

Ethan Kruse, Ohio Supercomputer Center

Usage Details

The Kepler mission proved that space telescopes can discover thousands of exoplanets, including ones small and cool like the Earth. As the number and diversity of known exoplanets grow, we learn more about how our own planet formed and evolved, as well as how common other Earth-like planets may be in our universe. Both the K2 and upcoming TESS missions provide millions more stars to search for planets, but there is not any mission-funded effort to do so. 

I have developed a flexible, comprehensive planet search pipeline to discover exoplanets around the K2 and TESS targets. I have discovered hundreds of new planet candidates in K2,  and TESS promises to deliver even more. These new planets orbit stars vastly different from the ones Kepler studied. Combining my exoplanets with the known ones from Kepler, we can learn about how planets form and how common they are around stars of all types.