Astrophysics

Kepler

4,573 tracked publications and 232,495 citations from 2009–2026. Launched 2009. Life-cycle cost: $1.1B in 2025 dollars. Active Mission Window June 1, 2009 to November 1, 2020: 3,025 publications, 426 top-10% credit.

Survey Observatory · h-index 204 · 553 papers with 100+ citations · prime mission ended 2012


Lifetime

Scope Papers published from the first full month after science operations begin through 2 years after the mission ends. Citations are counted through the third calendar year after each paper appears. Methods Papers published from the first full month after science operations begin through 2 years after the prime mission ends. Citations are counted through the third calendar year after each paper appears. Methods Every tracked publication to date, with every citation to date. Methods

Key measures

Active Mission Window · papers June 1, 2009 to November 1, 2020
Tracked publicationsTracked publications: peer-reviewed research papers we found for the mission. The list may not be complete. Methods3,025
CitationsCitations received by the tracked publications in the selected scope. The two windowed scopes count each paper’s citations only within its citation window. Methods80,484
Mean citations per publicationMean citations: total citations divided by tracked publications in the selected scope. One blockbuster paper can lift it. Methods27
Median citations per publicationMedian citations: the middle paper’s citation count in the selected scope; half the papers have more, half fewer. A single blockbuster sways it less than the mean. Methods16
Uncited publicationsUncited publications: papers with no citations in the selected scope. Methods123 (4.1%)
Top-10% creditTop 10%: among the 10% most-cited papers from this division’s missions, ranked against papers published around the same time. A paper naming several missions is split evenly among the missions in this division that claim it, so counts can be fractional. Methods426 · 8.5% of division
Top-1% creditTop 1%: among the 1% most-cited papers from this division’s missions within the selected window. Not adjusted for publication year. A paper naming several missions is split evenly among the missions in this division that claim it, so counts can be fractional. Methods47 · 9.5% of division
Lifetime indices · every tracked publication to date, in any scope
h-indexh-index: the largest h such that h papers have at least h citations each. It only grows with time, so older missions score higher. Methods204
g-indexg-index: the largest g for which the g most-cited papers together hold at least g² citations. Like the h-index, but it lets the most-cited papers count for more. Methods322
m-index, as of October 4, 2026m-index: a mission’s h-index divided by the years since its first peer-reviewed paper. It falls every 1 January even when nothing else changes, so it belongs to the date shown; it also discounts the long operating life that larger missions paid for. Methods11.3
toritori (total research impact, from ADS): for every paper citing one of the mission’s papers, 1 divided by the citing paper’s reference count times the cited paper’s author count, summed, with self-citations removed. It favors citations from papers with short reference lists and from outside the mission’s own authors. Computed over the tracked citation graph, which can be slightly incomplete. Methods657
riqriq (research impact quotient): 1,000 times the square root of tori, divided by the years since the mission’s first paper. A rate, not a total, so it does not keep growing with age the way the h-index and tori do. Methods1,424

Tracked publications

  1. Kepler Planet-Detection Mission: Introduction and First Results

    Borucki, William J., 2010, Sci

    3,888 citations

  2. Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Planets, Oscillations, Rotation, and Massive Stars

    Paxton, Bill, 2013, ApJS

    3,608 citations

  3. The K2 Mission: Characterization and Early Results

    Howell, Steve B., 2014, PASP

    1,805 citations

  4. Habitable Zones around Main-sequence Stars: New Estimates

    Kopparapu, Ravi Kumar, 2013, ApJ

    1,379 citations

  5. The California-Kepler Survey. III. A Gap in the Radius Distribution of Small Planets

    Fulton, Benjamin J., 2017, AJ

    1,369 citations

  6. Kepler Mission Design, Realized Photometric Performance, and Early Science

    Koch, David G., 2010, ApJ

    1,162 citations

  7. Planet Occurrence within 0.25 AU of Solar-type Stars from Kepler

    Howard, Andrew W., 2012, ApJS

    1,083 citations

  8. The False Positive Rate of Kepler and the Occurrence of Planets

    Fressin, François, 2013, ApJ

    1,046 citations

  9. Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler. III. Analysis of the First 16 Months of Data

    Batalha, Natalie M., 2013, ApJS

    1,041 citations

  10. Kepler Presearch Data Conditioning II - A Bayesian Approach to Systematic Error Correction

    Smith, Jeffrey C., 2012, PASP

    991 citations

  11. The Occurrence of Potentially Habitable Planets Orbiting M Dwarfs Estimated from the Full Kepler Dataset and an Empirical Measurement of the Detection Sensitivity

    Dressing, Courtney D., 2015, ApJ

    963 citations

  12. Characteristics of Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler. II. Analysis of the First Four Months of Data

    Borucki, William J., 2011, ApJ

    953 citations

  13. Fast and Scalable Gaussian Process Modeling with Applications to Astronomical Time Series

    Foreman-Mackey, Daniel, 2017, AJ

    948 citations

  14. Kepler Presearch Data Conditioning I—Architecture and Algorithms for Error Correction in Kepler Light Curves

    Stumpe, Martin C., 2012, PASP

    862 citations

  15. The Evaporation Valley in the Kepler Planets

    Owen, James E., 2017, ApJ

    840 citations

  16. Kepler Planets: A Tale of Evaporation

    Owen, James E., 2013, ApJ

    832 citations

  17. The NASA Exoplanet Archive: Data and Tools for Exoplanet Research

    Akeson, R. L., 2013, PASP

    816 citations

  18. Kepler Input Catalog: Photometric Calibration and Stellar Classification

    Brown, Timothy M., 2011, AJ

    815 citations

  19. Rotation Periods of 34,030 Kepler Main-sequence Stars: The Full Autocorrelation Sample

    McQuillan, A., 2014, ApJS

    758 citations

  20. Architecture of Kepler's Multi-transiting Systems. II. New Investigations with Twice as Many Candidates

    Fabrycky, Daniel C., 2014, ApJ

    746 citations

How we found these papers

We searched NASA’s Astrophysics Data System (ADS) for peer-reviewed articles naming Kepler in the title, abstract or keywords; standard filters drop articles that are not peer-reviewed and magazine pieces. SciX is ADS’s current interface.

(((facility:"Kepler" OR (=abs:("Kepler mission"~2 OR "Kepler missions"~2 OR "Kepler spacecraft"~2 OR "Kepler satellite"~2 OR "Kepler telescope"~3 OR "Kepler photometry"~2 OR "Kepler data"~2 OR "Kepler observations"~2 OR "Kepler observed"~2 OR "Kepler light curve"~3 OR "Kepler light curves"~3 OR "Kepler targets"~2 OR "Kepler field"~2 OR "Kepler catalog"~3 OR "Kepler survey"~2 OR "Kepler candidates"~2 OR "Kepler sample"~2 OR "Kepler asteroseismology"~3 OR "Kepler asteroseismic"~3 OR "Kepler eclipsing"~2 OR "Kepler binary"~2 OR "Kepler binaries"~2))) OR facility:K2 OR abs:/kepler[0-9]+[a-z]?/ OR ((=abs:("K2 mission"~2 OR "K2 campaign"~3 OR "K2 data"~2 OR "K2 photometry"~2 OR "K2 light curve"~3 OR "K2 observations"~2 OR "K2 observed"~2 OR "K2 TESS"~3 OR "K2 b"~2 OR "K2 planet"~2 OR "K2 planets"~2) OR (abs:/k2[0-9]+[a-z]?/ AND abs:K2)) AND =abs:(star OR stars OR stellar OR planet OR planets OR planetary OR transit OR transits OR photometry OR asteroseismology OR "light curve" OR "light curves" OR Kepler OR EPIC))) AND NOT =abs:("Kepler supernova remnant"~3 OR "Kepler SNR")) AND property:refereed AND doctype:article AND pubdate:[2009-06 TO 2040-01] AND NOT bibstem:("A&R" OR "AIASJ" OR "AeAm" OR "AirSp" OR "AsNow" OR "AsUAI" OR "AvWST" OR "C&E" OR "C&T" OR "CAPJ" OR "E&S" OR "ENews" OR "IrAJ" OR "JCos" OR "JRASC" OR "LAstr" OR "MNSSA" OR "Met" OR "NewSc" OR "Orion" OR "PhT" OR "PhTea" OR "PhuZ" OR "PhyOJ" OR "PhyW" OR "PlR" OR "SciAm" OR "SpFl" OR "ZemVs")

Open in SciX

Removed after review (2)

  1. Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission. VIII. CoRoT-7b: the first super-Earth with measured radius Mentions Kepler only prospectively ("will affect"); the paper is primarily about a different mission's discovery, so Kepler is not the subject of the science result. Decision 👨
  2. Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Mission description of TESS; mentions Kepler only as a predecessor. Decision 🤖