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After traveling more than 150 million kilometers from Earth and discovering about 2,600 planets, the Kepler Space Telescope received its latest orders from NASA on Thursday, November 15th.
The US space agency said the latter orders should disconnect communications with mission control and the Earth. In a strange coincidence, NASA announced that it had issued Kepler's "good night drives" the same day that his telescope, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler, had died in 1630.
This last order was to be issued, NASA having announced at the end of October that its telescope, which had remained in place for a long time, had run out of fuel about 94 million kilometers from the Earth. The space agency said the telescope had been removed while it was on a "safe orbit, far from the Earth".
Among the main achievements of the space telescope are its 9.6 years spent observing more than 530,500 stars, documenting 61 supernovae and discovering 2,662 new planets. The US space agency said many of these planets discovered by the Kepler "could be promising places for life".
"The Kepler team has disabled security modes that may inadvertently re-enable systems and shut down communications by shutting down transmitters," NASA says on its website.
"As the spacecraft slowly rotates, Kepler's team had to carefully timed the controls so that the instructions reach the spaceship during the viable communication periods." The team will monitor the spacecraft for s & # 39; 39, to ensure the success of his orders. "
Other discoveries of Kepler include the discovery that 20 to 50% of visible stars probably have "small, possibly rocky, Earth-sized planets" located in the habitable zones of their parent stars.
The telescope was launched in 2009 with the primary goal of determining how common the planets outside the solar system are.
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"As NASA's first planet-search mission, Kepler far exceeded all our expectations and paved the way for our exploration and search for life in the solar system and beyond," said Thomas Zurbuchen. , Associate Administrator, NASA Science Mission Directorate. Press release.
"Not only did he show us how many planets could exist, but he also gave birth to an entirely new and robust field of research that has taken the scientific community by storm, his discoveries shed new light on our place. in the universe, and have illuminated the mysteries and enticing possibilities among the stars. "
With the announcement today of the retirement of the @NASAKepler space telescope, we officially pass the hunting torch to the planet @NASA_TESS, who will seek 200 000 of the most brilliant [?] [?] near [?] for new worlds! Learn more about the mission: https://t.co/HYeFAnWOL7 pic.twitter.com/sxSeYO2v63
– NASA Kepler and K2 (@NASAKepler) October 31, 2018
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