Kepler- Data

You might get more response if you provided a little more detail. Perhaps a summary of what is in this data set?

LB

Hello Larry,

sorry, I assumed somebody has looked into that and I just missed it.
Here: archive.stsci.edu/kepler/planet_candidates.html are some light curves recorded by the Kepler spacecraft, the curve KPLR005371776-2009259160929 looks as if the light of the star is modulated by two sine waves of different amplitude but approx. same frequence. My main question is: Does it make sence to analyse those curves?

Best regard Thomas

<b>[thomas u] "Does it make sence to analyse those curves?"</b>

When a collapsing protostar overspins and fissions a pair of prolate lobes, they will start off very close to the surface of the protostar. Tidal forces will be large as a result and the two new orbiting masses will evolve rapidly outward (spiral) as a result. But not at the same rate. Within decades they will be at significantly different altitudes, and this will cause them have significantly different orbital periods.

Light curve data from such a system would produce same frequency data for only a very brief time. The odds against catching an event like this at the moment of fission are very high.

But not zero. So suppose this is one of those billion to one long shots. The thing to look for, in the data, is for the two same frequency signals to move down in frequency (as ther protostar shrinks and the masses spiral outward) and to move to frequencies that are no longer the same (as the masses assume different orbits).

I don't think any of the stars surveyed are protostars. Once a protostar transitions to a normal star, planet formation (according to the fission theory) must stop. And so must any tidal force induced spiraling.

Another possibility: undersampling of periodic phenomena can cause ghost signals in the data set.

Regards,
LB

Actually, I mispoke. there is a way for two planets to have the same orbit around a normal star. And there is an example of it right here in our own solar system.

Two mooms of Saturn, Janus and Epimetheus, have orbits that differ by only 50 kilometers. Since they orbit at about 150,000 kilometers, this is very close. Most of the time they are at least tens of thousands of kilometers apart. But when they do approach each other every few years, they do this strange dance around each other and start moving away again, until the next close approach. Orbital dynamics will prevent them from ever colliding. Many things about gravity are counterintuitive.

So maybe there are two planets with the same orbit around that star.

But, if it had anything to do with formation by fission, it would be coincidence. The same thing could happen by other means so the existence of such a pair would not support or refute fission formation theory.