Last month astronomers from NASA announced the discovery of seven Earth-sized planets in the habitat zone of an ultra-cool dwarf star, named TRAPPIST-1. This whole discovery made by NASA's Spitzer Space observatory along with a ground-based telescope and this latest batch of planets hold a new record of largest number of the discovery of habitable zone planets.
In this regard, NASA's exoplanet-hunting Kepler space observatory also has been observing this dwarf star since December 2016. This additional mission of Kepler telescope from 15th December 2016 to 4th march 2017 is abbreviated as K2 Mission. NASA published all information about the K2 mission and additional data in their data archive of the scientific community.
During the period of the K2 mission, Kepler collected some important data of Star's microscopic change in brightness due to transiting seven planets. From all these data, Astronomers rectify their previous measuring parameters of six planets and also get some accurate info about the mass and orbital period of the seventh or farthest planet, named TRAPPIST-1h. They also try to find the magnetic activity of the host star.
All published data from the K2 mission are raw and un-calibrated which may help only astronomers for further study of TRAPPIST-1 in next winter. NASA also stated that all complete, calibrated data will be published after routine check and also available in public archive in late may.
The observation period, known as the K2 campaign 12 is actually held for seventy-four days continuous monitoring. This period is the longest observation of TRAPPIST-1 which helps astronomers for a comprehensive study of the gravitational interaction between seven planets and also further investigation for any undiscovered planets in that system.
NASA claimed that Kepler K2 campaign 12 actually set in October 2016, when TRAPPIST-1 does not have NASA's point of interest. Initially, they programmed a different coordinate for the mission K2 which was before the planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1 were known to exist, that's why Kepler missed detecting this new found habitat region.
