K2 Mission: High-Precision Photometry Across 20 Ecliptic Fields

The K2 mission observed 100 square degrees for 80 days each across 20 different pointings along the ecliptic, collecting high-precision photometry for a selection of targets within each field. The mission began in 2013 after the original Kepler mission ended due to a hardware failure. The data is hosted by the Space Telescope Science Institute and is in the public domain.

Use Cases

• Detect exoplanet transits based on high-precision photometry.
• Analyze stellar variability and rotation based on time-series observations.
• Study specific celestial targets within the 20 observed ecliptic fields.

Strengths

• High-precision photometry data.
• Observations cover 100 square degrees across 20 distinct fields.
• Each field was observed for a consistent 80-day campaign.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Space Telescope Science Institute

Collection Method

Data collected by the K2 space telescope mission.

Time Range

Mission began in 2013.