Kepler Mission Endangered
Courtesy of NASA/Ames Research Center
Oh no. The Kepler Space Telescope — responsible for detecting 135 confirmed planets and over 3,500 planet candidates — is malfunctioning and has shut down. The problem stems from a faulty reaction wheel that keeps the telescope pointed and aimed.
Since its launch in 2009, Kepler has been a huge success. The telescope points to stars in the Cygnus and Lyra constellations, and detects planets by catching the dimming of starlight as the planets pass in front of their parent stars. Kepler’s mission is to find out just how many planets are “out there.” So far, about 230 of the planet candidates are about the size of Earth. About 820 appear to be rocky planets like Earth that are only twice as big as our own planet.
Dennis Overbye of the New York Times reported that astronomer Geoff Marcy said that the Kepler data was crucial, and that without it “astronomers would be ‘right on the edge’ of answering the question of how common other Earths are, but with less statistical certainty than originally desired.”
Keep your fingers crossed that the Kepler team can fix the problem!
