• DOI:10.1086/676406
• Corpus ID: 119206652

The K2 Mission: Characterization and Early Results

@article{Howell2014TheKM,
  title={The K2 Mission: Characterization and Early Results},
  author={Steve B. Howell and Charles K. Sobeck and Michael Haas and Martin D. Still and Thomas Barclay and Fergal Robert Mullally and John R. Troeltzsch and Suzanne Aigrain and Stephen T. Bryson and Douglas A. Caldwell and William J. Chaplin and William D. Cochran and Daniel Huber and Geoffrey W. Marcy and Andrea Miglio and Joan Rie Najita and Marcie Smith and Joseph D. Twicken and Jonathan J. Fortney},
  journal={Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific},
  year={2014},
  volume={126},
  pages={398 - 408}
}

• S. Howell, C. Sobeck, +16 authors J. Fortney
• Published 20 February 2014
• Physics, Geology
• Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

The K2 mission will make use of the Kepler spacecraft and its assets to expand upon Kepler’s groundbreaking discoveries in the fields of exoplanets and astrophysics through new and exciting observations. K2 will use an innovative way of operating the spacecraft to observe target fields along the ecliptic for the next 2–3 years. Early science commissioning observations have shown an estimated photometric precision near 400 ppm in a single 30 minute observation, and a 6-hr photometric precision of 80 ppm (both at V = 12). The K2 mission offers long-term, simultaneous optical observation of thousands of objects at a precision far better than is achievable from ground-based telescopes. Ecliptic fields will be observed for approximately 75 days enabling a unique exoplanet survey which fills the gaps in duration and sensitivity between the Kepler and TESS missions, and offers pre-launch exoplanet target identification for JWST transit spectroscopy. Astrophysics observations with K2 will include studies of young open clusters, bright stars, galaxies, supernovae, and asteroseismology.