CHARACTERISTICS OF<i>KEPLER</i>PLANETARY CANDIDATES BASED ON THE FIRST DATA SET

Abstract

In the spring of 2009, the Kepler Mission commenced high-precision photometry\non nearly 156,000 stars to determine the frequency and characteristics of small\nexoplanets, conduct a guest observer program, and obtain asteroseismic data on\na wide variety of stars. On 15 June 2010 the Kepler Mission released data from\nthe first quarter of observations. At the time of this publication, 706 stars\nfrom this first data set have exoplanet candidates with sizes from as small as\nthat of the Earth to larger than that of Jupiter. Here we give the identity and\ncharacteristics of 306 released stars with planetary candidates. Data for the\nremaining 400 stars with planetary candidates will be released in February\n2011. Over half the candidates on the released list have radii less than half\nthat of Jupiter. The released stars include five possible multi-planet systems.\nOne of these has two Neptune-size (2.3 and 2.5 Earth-radius) candidates with\nnear-resonant periods.\n