Towards Improved Occurrence Rates of Exoplanets: The Properties of Stars Observed by Kepler

The detection of over 3000 new exoplanets by the NASA Kepler mission has opened up the possibility to infer the occurrence rate of planets in the habitable zones of stars in our galaxy. However, both the characteristics of the detected planets and their occurrence rates crucially depend on our understanding of properties of the stars that were observed. In this talk I will present current efforts to improve our understanding of fundamental properties of Kepler target stars and their planets, in particular using the technique of asteroseismology. I will furthermore discuss the prospects of Kepler's follow-up mission, K2, for advancing our understanding of exoplanets and stellar astrophysics.

Speaker: Daniel Huber, SETI