This estimate was developed allowing 10 ppm for stellar variability, roughly the value for the Sun. The first of these were reported after only a few months of operation. 706 targets from this first data set have viable exoplanet candidates, with sizes ranging from as small as Earth to larger than Jupiter. Smaller planets, and planets farther from their sun would take longer, and discovering planets comparable to Earth were expected to take three years or longer.Data collected by Kepler is also being used for studying Once Kepler has collected and sent back the data, raw light curves are constructed. "When we started conceiving this mission 35 years ago we didn't know of a single planet outside our solar system," said the Kepler mission's founding principal investigator, William Borucki. A lot of these planets are Earth-sized. It opened our eyes to diverse worlds – some entirely unlike planets found in our solar system.The Kepler space telescope will remain for decades in orbit around the Sun, weaving in and out of Earth’s orbital path.NASA Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen and TESS Project Scientist Padi Boyd discuss Kepler's legacy, the search for life and the big question: Are we alone?The stars TESS studies are 30 to 100 times brighter than those the Kepler mission and K2 follow-up surveyed, enabling far easier follow-up observations with both ground-based and space-based telescopes. That's Kepler's legacy. During its missions it discovered 2,662 extrasolar planets, about two-thirds of all planets then known. NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has captured these six infrared views of the Martian moon Phobos.

Kepler That discovery was the result of surveying more than 156,000 stars over a period of seven months.

A planetary tour through time. Finally, the SOC develops and maintains the project's scientific databases, including catalogs and processed data. NASA announced in February 2011 that these planets were larger than Earth, with the largest ones comparable in size to Uranus and Neptune.In 2011, Kepler suffered at least two safe mode events. During its first six weeks of operation, Kepler discovered five exoplanetsnamed Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b and 8b (which NASA announced in January 2010).In April 2010, mission scientists published results that showed that Kepler had discovered the first confirmed planetary system with more than one planet transiting the same star, Kepler-9. "Before retiring the spacecraft, scientists pushed Kepler to its full potential, successfully completing multiple observation campaigns and downloading valuable science data even after initial warnings of low fuel. The spacecraft was put into safe mode, then from June to August 2013 a series of engineering tests were done to try to recover either failed wheel. Hubble data shows the dimming of Betelgeuse was most likely caused by an immense amount of hot material ejected into space. Scientists have developed a new prediction of the shape of the bubble surrounding our solar system. Image Credit: NASA Ames/W Stenzel In 2009, NASA launched a sounding rocket to measure helium in the Sun's atmosphere.The results were recently published. Scientists went on to find a fifth planet in the system. Without three functioning wheels, the telescope could not be pointed accurately. It was discovered that Kepler had entered The nearest star system in Kepler's field of view is the trinary star system The scientific objective of the Kepler space telescope was to explore the structure and diversity of Because Kepler must observe at least three transits to confirm that the dimming of a star was caused by a transiting planet, and because larger planets give a signal that is easier to check, scientists expected the first reported results to be larger Jupiter-size planets in tight orbits. During 9.6 years in orbit, Kepler led to the discovery of more than 2,600 planets by observing more than half a million stars.After nine years in deep space collecting data that revealed our night sky to be filled with billions of hidden planets – more planets even than stars – NASA’s NASA's Kepler mission revolutionized our scientific understanding of our place in the cosmos by discovering that:A interactive timeline of the Kepler mission, starting with its roadmap for planet hunting.Meet the scientists, engineers and experts who worked with NASA’s Kepler space telescope mission.