Kepler's Legacy: The Dawn of Discovery
The Kepler Space Telescope revolutionized our understanding of exoplanets. Launched in 2009, its primary mission was to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone around other stars. The sheer volume of data provided by Kepler has led to thousands of confirmed exoplanet discoveries and established the prevalence of planetary systems beyond our own.
Its transit photometry method, observing the slight dimming of a star as a planet passes in front of it, proved incredibly effective. While Kepler is no longer operational, its data continues to be analyzed, yielding new insights and discoveries years later.
Learn more about the planets discovered by Kepler.
TESS's Ongoing Mission: Neighborly Worlds
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is NASA's next-generation planet hunter. It's currently surveying the brightest and nearest stars for exoplanets using the transit method, complementing Kepler's discoveries by focusing on a different segment of the sky and a different set of stellar targets.
TESS's goal is to find exoplanets that are more than twice as large as Earth orbiting stars relatively close to our solar system. This makes them prime candidates for further study by instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope to analyze their atmospheres.
Discover more about TESS's discoveries on the TESS mission page.
Data Visualization: Exoplanet Abundance
Explore other fascinating cosmic phenomena: