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The Kepler mission has spotted thousands of exoplanets since 2014, with 30 planets less than twice the size of the Earth, which are now known to orbit in the habitable areas of their stars.
Launched at Cape Canaveral on March 7, 2009, the Kepler telescope has helped search for planets outside the solar system.
He captured his last image on September 25, 2018 and ran out of gas five days later.
At launch, it weighed 1,320 pounds (1,052 kg) and was 4.7 meters by 2.7 meters (15.4 feet) long and 8.9 feet wide.
The satellite generally searches for "Earth-like" planets, which means that they are rocky and orbiting inside this orbit in the habitable zone or "Gold Loop" of the Earth. 39, a star.
In total, Kepler has discovered about 5,000 unconfirmed "candidate" exoplanets, as well as 2,500 other "confirmed" exoplanets that scientists have proven to be real.
Kepler is currently on the mission 'K2'. to discover more exoplanets.
K2 is the second mission of the spacecraft. It was implemented by necessity rather than desire when two spacecraft reaction wheels failed.
These wheels control the direction and altitude of the spacecraft and help direct it in the right direction.
The modified mission examines exoplanets around faintly red dwarf stars.
While the planet has found thousands of exoplanets during its eight-year mission, five in particular have remained behind.
Kepler-452b, nicknamed "Earth 2.0", shares many features with our planet despite 1,400 light-years. It was found by NASA's Kepler telescope in 2014
1) & # 39; Earth 2.0 & # 39;
In 2014, the telescope made one of its greatest discoveries by discovering the exoplanet Kepler-452b, nicknamed "Earth 2.0."
The object shares many features with our planet despite 1,400 light-years.
It is similar in size to the Earth, receives about the same amount of sunlight and has the same duration of a year.
The experts still do not know if the planet is harboring life, but say that if the plants were transferred there, they would probably survive.
2) The first planet found in orbit around two stars
Kepler discovered a planet around two stars, known as the binary star system, in 2011.
The system, known as Kepler-16b, is about 200 light-years away from Earth.
Experts have compared this system to the famous "double sunset" pictured on Luke Skywalker's original planet, Tatooine, in "Star Wars: A New Hope."
3) Find the first habitable planet outside the solar system
Scientists discovered Kepler-22b in 2011, the first habitable planet discovered by astronomers outside the solar system.
The super-habitable Earth seems to be a large rocky planet with a surface temperature of about 22 ° C (72 ° F), similar to a spring day on Earth.
4) Discover a "super-Earth"
The telescope found its first "super-Earth" in April 2017, a huge planet called LHS 1140b.
It orbits a red dwarf star about 40 million light years away, and scientists believe it contains giant oceans of magma.
5) Find the star system 'Trappist-1'
The Trappist-1 star system, which hosts a record number of seven Earth-like planets, was one of the greatest discoveries of 2017.
Each of the planets, which revolve around a dwarf star barely 39 million light years away, probably holds water on its surface.
Three of the planets have such good conditions that scientists say that life has already evolved on them.
Kepler spotted the system in 2016, but scientists have revealed this discovery in a series of documents released in February of this year.
Kepler is a telescope with an extremely sensitive instrument called a photometer, which detects the slightest changes in the light emitted by the stars.
How does Kepler discover the planets?
The telescope is equipped with an extremely sensitive instrument called photometer, which detects the slightest changes in the light emitted by the stars.
He follows 100,000 stars simultaneously, looking for revealing light-intensity drops of a planet in orbit passing between the satellite and its distant target.
When a planet passes in front of a star seen from Earth, the event is called a "transit".
Tiny troughs in the brightness of a star during a transit can help scientists determine the orbit and size of the planet, as well as the size of the star.
Based on these calculations, scientists can determine if the planet is in the "habitable zone" of the star and therefore whether it can harbor the conditions conducive to the growth of a foreign life.
Kepler was the first spacecraft to study the planets of our own galaxy and, over the years, his observations have confirmed the existence of more than 2,600 exoplanets – many of which could be key targets in the quest for extraterrestrial life.
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