Side A
Light detected from star Kepler-22
Original data
This is real data taken from the Kepler satellite as it observed star Kepler-22 over two years. There appears to be large variations in the light level
received from the star over this time. This is because there are other factors which affect how much light we detect. For example; the amount of dust
in space between us and the star which will block the star’s light, or if there are any other sources of light which happen to be shining on the detector.
Number of days
Corrected data
This is the same data as above, but every effort has been made to delete any random changes in light level due to other factors. There are still
variations, but now they are much smaller; only a fraction of 0.0002 above or below the average value (which has been set to 1). Now the regular dips
in starlight are much easier to see. These dips are caused by planet Kepler 22-b passing in front of the star and blocking a small portion of its light.
Number of days
Side B
Zoomed-in data: Dips in light level
Each of the three dips observed on side A have been combined into the graph below.
This shows what happens to the light received from star Kepler-22 during the dips caused by planet Kepler 22-b.
The black dots represent single observations, the blue dots represent observations that have been combined into 30-minute groupings and the red
line represents what is expected in theory. The light cyan points are anomalous data points that have been ignored from the fit.