Abstract
The Kepler Mission is exploring the diversity of planets and planetary
systems. Its legacy will be a catalog of discoveries sufficient for computing
planet occurrence rates as a function of size, orbital period, star-type, and
insolation flux. The mission has made significant progress toward achieving
that goal. Over 3,500 transiting exoplanets have been identified from the
analysis of the first three years of data, 100 of which are in the habitable
zone. The catalog has a high reliability rate (85-90\% averaged over the
period/radius plane) which is improving as follow-up observations continue.
Dynamical (e.g. velocimetry and transit timing) and statistical methods have
confirmed and characterized hundreds of planets over a large range of sizes and
compositions for both single and multiple-star systems. Population studies
suggest that planets abound in our galaxy and that small planets are
particularly frequent. Here, I report on the progress Kepler has made measuring
the prevalence of exoplanets orbiting within 1 AU of their host stars in
support of NASA's long-term goal of finding habitable environments beyond the
solar system.
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