How Kepler opened our eyes to the vastness of our galactic neighborhood

Thousands of tiny pinpricks of light fill a dark sky on a cloudless night. For thousands of years, people have looked up at that star-filled, mysterious expanse and wondered what – or who – is out there. Do worlds like our own orbit other stars? Is life a common occurrence in the cosmos? Or, are we alone in the universe?

With the scheduled launch of a new mechanical “planet hunter” Monday, NASA will take the next step toward answering those ancient questions. TESS – the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite – will scan almost the entire sky over the next two years, identifying planets orbiting stars (called exoplanets) in our own stellar neighborhood that may hold clues into the evolution of solar systems, Earth-like planets, and life.

But TESS isn’t the first orbiting telescope to search for exoplanets. NASA’s Kepler space telescope paved the way. 

Since it first launched in 2009, Kepler has discovered more than 2,600 exoplanets and counting – nearly three-quarters of all

A hunter's sightStranger than (science) fiction Hunting for habitability