Kepler

Description

Kepler is an American (NASA) astronomy probe launched by a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral at 03:50 UT on 07 March 2009. Kepler's mission is to search for Earth-sized planets around other stars by looking for brightness variations in over 100,000 stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region. The photometer on Kepler will continuously monitor the same star-field in a 12-degree field of view over the nominal 3.5 year lifetime, allowing multiple observations of transits of exoplanets in orbits up to one year. To help fulfill the science objectives, the 1,052 kg spacecraft was placed into a solar orbit of period 372.5 days. This orbit helps maintain a stable pointing attitude.