What is Kepler?
Q: What is Kepler?
A: Kepler is a space observatory launched by NASA to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.
Q: Who was the spacecraft named after?
A: The spacecraft was named in honor of the 17th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler.
Q: When was it launched?
A: It was launched on 7 March 2009.
Q: How long did it remain active for?
A: It remained active for 13 years, 8 months and 3 days as of November 10, 2022.
Q: What is the purpose of the mission?
A: The purpose of the mission is to survey a portion of our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover dozens of Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone and determine how many stars in our galaxy have such planets.
Q: How does it work?
A: It works by using occultation method which involves continually monitoring the brightness of over 145,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view and transmitting this data back to Earth where it can be analyzed for periodic dimming caused by extrasolar planets crossing their host star.
Q: How many candidates have been found so far?
A: As of January 2013, there are a total of 2,740 candidates that have been found.
