Kepler Transit Graph

The results from Kepler will come from measuring the brightness of the stars. The data will look like an EKG showing the heart beat. Whenever a planet passes in front of its parent star as viewed from our solar system it produces a tiny pulse or beat. From the repeated beats we can detect and confirm the existence of Earth-size planets and learn about the orbit and size of the planet. The scientific results from Kepler come in a different way than most astronomy missions. It will not produce pretty pictures or even colorful spectrograms, but rather light curves that take several years to gather.