NASA has launched the Kepler space telescope – its mission? To find the next Earth…
NASA has launched the Kepler space telescope – its mission? To find the next Earth…
According to Ed Weiler, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate the mission will attempt to find the answer to “a question that is as old as time itself — are other planets like ours out there? t’s not just a science mission, it’s an historical mission.”
Equipped with the largest camera ever launched into space, the Kepler telescope was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Friday. It will spend the next three years staring into space chronicling over 100,000 stars across the Cygnus and Lyra constellations of the Milky Way.
The launch of the Kepler telescope is the first mission by NASA in search of planets similar to Earth. The search criteria for the telescope includes planets that have liquid water and a life sustaining atmosphere – neither too hot or cold…
“If we find that many, it certainly will mean that life may well be common throughout our galaxy, that there is an opportunity for life to have a place to evolve,” said William Borucki, Kepler’s Principal Investigator based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California.
“If none or only a few of these planets are found, it might suggest that habitable planets like Earth are very rare and Earth may be a lonely outpost for life.”
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