It ’s safe to say that without the Kepler scope , our noesis of planet beyond the Solar System would be a fraction of what it is today . And now the mission is unhappily arrive at its conclusion .
On Friday , July 6,NASA saidthat the ballistic capsule had been placed in hibernation , as its fuel reserve were “ running very low ” . We ’ve get it on for a while that the scope wasrunning out of fuel , but now it appear like we ’re move towards the destruction - game .
The spacecraft has recently been on its18th observation campaign , looking at stars towards the constellation of Cancer to hunt for planets . It does this by watching for dips in the illumination of the stars , known as the transit method acting , make by orbiting planets passing in front of the principal .
It has actually look at this patch of sky before , back in 2015 . But to confirm planet it necessitate to seethree transit , so it looked again to try and verify some of the prospect planets distinguish three years ago .
At the moment we do n’t know what it found , because the data point from the scope is still on board . To station the information back to Earth , Kepler has to use fuel to fire its thrusters and point its transmitting aerial back towards our planet .
It has been allocated time on theDeep Space connection , a global array of dishes that receives data from ballistic capsule , in early August . So until then , NASA will keep the ballistic capsule in a “ no - fuel - role ” secure modal value , to ensure it has enough fuel to point towards us .
“ On August 2 , the team will command the ballistic capsule to awaken from its no - fuel - use of goods and services state and maneuver the spacecraft to the correct orientation and downlink the data , ” said NASA . “ If the maneuver and download are successful , the squad will commence its 19th observation cause on August 6 with the remaining fuel . ”
Kepler has already returned a huge amount of data , which scientists are currently poring through . They ’re still only sifting through the tenth notice movement , meaning that even when the mission ends , it will take years to go through the remaining data .
So far the telescope has foundmore than 2,300confirmed exoplanets , with thousands more campaigner planets . Since March , though , we ’ve known the ballistic capsule wasnearing its end . It was just a matter of time until the mission add up to an goal .
Positioned 151 million km ( 94 million miles ) from Earth , the spacecraft can not be refuel . So when it does eventually hunt out , we ’ll be saying goodbye to this open up mission . It will besucceededby the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite ( TESS ) , which launch in April . But Kepler will be sorely miss , leave behind a fascinating bequest that enhance our noesis of exoplanets forever .
