KEPLER RETIRES
The US space agency's Kepler space telescope has run out of fuel and is being retired after nine and a half years, having helped discover more than 2,600 planets, some of which may hold life, officials said yesterday.
The unmanned space telescope, which launched in 2009, revealed that billions of hidden planets are in space and revolutionized humanity's understanding of the universe, experts said.
Kepler helped astronomers measure potential planets by glimpsing transits, or moments when planets passed in front of their stars.
Kepler showed that "20 to 50 percent of the stars visible in the night sky are likely to have small, possibly rocky, planets similar in size to Earth, and located within the habitable zone of their parent stars," Nasa said in a statement.
"That means they're located at distances from their parent stars where liquid water -- a vital ingredient to life as we know it -- might pool on the planet surface."
Signals that fuel was nearly out were seen two weeks ago. Scientists were able to get all the data from Kepler down to Earth before it completely ran dry.
Nasa said it has decided to retire the spacecraft "within its current, safe orbit, away from Earth."
Nasa says Kepler's mission may be over but its discoveries will be studied for years to come.
The next-generation planet hunter space telescope for Nasa, TESS, launched in April and will survey far more cosmic terrain than Kepler. The new spacecraft will focus on nearby exoplanets, those in the range of 30 to 300 light-years away.
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