![]() Some later technical fixes allowed the craft to switch its focus every three months, allowing it by the end of its life to look at more than half a million.ĭata downloaded in the telescope’s final months is still waiting to be analysed, holding out the promise of further fascinating discoveries – some of which, no doubt, will be investigated by Kepler’s successor, the soon to be launched James Webb Space Telescope. The original mission plan called for Kepler to survey 150,000 stars in the constellation Cygnus. NASA's Kepler Space Telescope was an observatory in space dedicated to finding planets outside our solar system, with a particular focus on finding planets that might resemble Earth. Analyses of Kepler’s discovery suggest that as many as 50% of visible stars are orbited by at least one small, rocky planet in the zone commonly thought to be best suited for the development of life. Piaulet and colleagues observed exoplanets Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 d with NASAs Hubble and the retired Spitzer space telescopes and discovered that the planets could be composed largely of water. It does this by continuously measuring the brightness of over 100,000 stars, waiting for momentary dimming that might indicate a planet has crossed in front of its host star. Its discoveries have shed a new light on our place in the universe, and illuminated the tantalising mysteries and possibilities among the stars.”Īs eulogies go, it’s a pretty good one. The Kepler spacecraft, launched in March of 2009, is a telescope designed to search for exoplanets, planets orbiting stars other than our sun. “Not only did it show us how many planets could be out there, it sparked an entirely new and robust field of research that has taken the science community by storm. “As NASA’s first planet-hunting mission, Kepler has wildly exceeded all our expectations and paved the way for our exploration and search for life in the solar system and beyond,” said Zurbuchen. ![]() It was originally intended to operate for just 3.5 years, but ended up being coaxed to continue for six more. Measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth, it is the smallest planet ever discovered outside our solar system. The telescope, launched in March, 2009, was the first piece of custom-built hardware designed to look for exoplanets. NASAs Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of its first rocky planet, named Kepler-10b. After just shy of a decade of active service, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has ceased operations.Īnnouncing the end of the telescope’s active life, Thomas Zurbuchen of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington DC said the telescope, orbiting at 151 million kilometres above Earth, had run out of fuel.
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