30, 2018, NASA announced the spacecraft was out of fuel and would be retired and left to safely orbit the sun. That mission collected more data about planets, as well as data about stars, comets, asteroids, dwarf planets, ice giants and moons. But scientists and engineers found a way to keep the spacecraft pointed in one direction for about three months at a time, thus embarking on a new mission called K2. Are we alone? What is our place in the Universe?”Ībout four years into its planet-hunting mission, the Kepler spacecraft malfunctioned and lost its ability to stay pointed at one area of the galaxy. It reaches deep within our souls as humans and brings to mind thoughts of alien life. “The Kepler mission extends far beyond scientific discovery. The idea was to find Earth-like planets within habitable zones – not too hot, not too cold – of their stars.Īs Howell writes in the first chapter of the Kepler book: Those dips could signify a planet moving, or transiting, in front of its host star. Its primary job was to detect tiny dips in the brightness of stars. The spacecraft was essentially a giant, 95 megapixel digital video camera aimed at the Cygnus-Lyra region of the Milky Way galaxy. As mission control announced at liftoff, Kepler left Earth “on a search for planets in some way like our own.” Kawaler was an eyewitness as a Delta II rocket launched Kepler into the night on March 6, 2009, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. “Kepler observed 50 interesting stars every minute.” “We’d pick a star and study it for six months or a year and write a paper.
“Before Kepler, we’d study interesting stars,” he said. “It was more than a revival it was an absolute revolution,” said Steve Kawaler, an Iowa State University Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, a co-leader of a Kepler star-studying investigation, chair of the editorial advisory board of AAS-IOP Astronomy book program and a contributor to the Kepler book. “The NASA Kepler Mission,” edited by Steve Howell of NASA and published by a partnership of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and IOP Publishing is now available online. “Stellar astrophysics underwent a re-birth due to the NASA Kepler and K2 missions,” says the introduction to a chapter on star studies in a new e-book targeted for graduate students and the astronomy community. Rutter.ĪMES, Iowa – NASA’s Kepler Mission was all about finding planets outside our solar system – especially Earth-like planets that could support life – but it also revitalized the study of stars. Illustration by NASA/Ames Research Center/W. GEOTOP & Départment des Sciences de la Terre et de l’Atmosphère, Université du Québec à Montréal, CP 8888, succ.NASA's Kepler and K2 missions discovered 2,600 planets beyond our solar system and collected data on more than 100,000 stars. NW, Washington, DC, 20015, USAĭepartment of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts Lederle Graduate Research, 710 North Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA, 01003-9305, USA Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5251 Broad Branch Rd. Astrophysicist, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux, BP 89, 33270, Floirac, Franceĭepartamento de Planetología y Habitabilidad Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Campus Cantoblanco, Torrejón de Ardoz, 28049, Madrid, Spainĭepartment of Astrophysics, Centro de Astrobiología (INTA-CSIC) Ctra de Ajalvir km 4, 28850 Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain