Kepler Space Telescope

This illustration shows NASA's Kepler mission in shades of blue. The main body of the spacecraft is cylindrical in shape, with a slanted top and a base that attaches to a structure wrapping around half of the main body of the craft.
An illustration of NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. The colors depicted in this illustration are for artistic purposes only.
NASA
December 20, 2022
CreditNASA
Historical DateDecember 20, 2022
Language
  • english

An illustration of NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. The colors depicted in this illustration are for artistic purposes only.

Kepler was a planet-hunting space telescope designed to discover Earth-size and larger planets orbiting in or near the habitable zones of their stars. Kepler surveyed our neighborhood in the Milky Way galaxy and, throughout its lifetime, observed over half a million stars, enabling the discovery of over 3,200 planets. The Kepler mission revealed that there are more planets than stars in our galaxy.

Launched: March 7, 2009
Decommissioned: October 30, 2018

Downloads

2424 × 2705

(png) (389.95 KB)