William Atkins
Saturday, 07 March 2009 19:42
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 4
The Kepler Mission was successfully launched into space from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 10:49 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Friday, March 6, 2009. The NASA mission is to find the first habitable planets the size of Earth orbiting about stars in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.
Kepler project manager James Fanson (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) stated,
"It was a stunning launch. Our team is thrilled to be a part of something so meaningful to the human race -- Kepler will help us understand if our Earth is unique or if others like it are out there." [NASA: "
NASA's Kepler Mission Rockets to Space in Search of Other
Earths"]
A video of the launch is provided by the MSNBC article “
Planet-hunting spacecraft launches.”
After its launch ground controllers confirmed that the
Kepler spacecraft had separated from its third-stage rocket and was entering its helio-centered (Sun-centered) orbit—that is, it is in approximately the same orbit as the Earth, only about 950 miles (about 1,550 kilometers) behind the Earth.
Such a position is ideal for Kepler because it will remain in the shadow of Earth, which will block the light from the Sun, in order to better observe over 100,000 stars throughout its next 3.5 years of operations.
During this time, the Kepler spacecraft will be checking out over one hundred thousand stars within the Milky Way Galaxy, specifically within the
Cyngus and Lyra constellations, which are between 600 and 3,000 light-years away from Earth.
Hopefully some of these stars that Kepler searches for will have planets orbiting them.
And, hopefully some of them will be close to the size of Earth (thus, rocky in composition).
And, hopefully some of them will be positioned in habitable zones (areas that are not too close and not too far away from its star, but just right, what is called the Goldilocks zone, that are likely to be hospitable for the presence of life).
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