POTENTIAL GUEST OBSERVER SCIENCE

Guest Observer programs may relate to any non-exoplanet astrophysics. Non-exoplanet programs may involve new observations of any source within the Kepler field of view. These may be new or previously observed Kepler targets. Proposers are encouraged to browse the abstracts of previous successful Guest Observer proposals. The strongest new proposals are likely to promote science programs that build upon previous research or that increase the range and diversity of Kepler investigations.

Additional target lists pursue the Kepler legacy exoplanet transit survey and legacy asteroseismological targets. In the event of overlap between GO programs and these existing target lists, the GO program target quota will not get charged for targets or pixels.

GO science investigations focused upon or related to exoplanet identification or characterization are permitted provided they use uniquely and exclusively either short cadence pixel resources or allocate pixels to targets not currently being observed in the exoplanet transit survey.

All GO target data will flow through the Kepler science processing and analysis pipeline. The pipeline performs a sensitive search for planetary candidates within the derived light curves. There is a small chance that a GO target will show evidence of an exoplanet in the pipeline analysis. Any GO target that shows evidence for an exoplanet will be investigated by the Kepler project.

US members of the Kepler Asteroseismic Science Consortium (KASC) are eligible to compete for GO funding for the purpose of pursuing US-led KASC programs.