Space-watchers saw the handwriting on the wall months ago, but now it’s official: NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, by far the most successful planet-hunting telescope in history, isn’t coming back. Engineers ...

Mission managers say they expect Kepler to run out of fuel in the next few months, putting an end to nearly a decade of planet-spotting. Share on Facebook (opens in a new window) Share on X (opens in ...

AMES, Iowa – An international team of astronomers has used nearly three years of high precision data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft to make the first observations of a planet outside our solar system ...

When the Kepler space telescope malfunctioned last spring, it looked as though its incredibly successful planet-hunting mission might be over—and NASA made that sad fact official a few months later.

There's no fuel gauge on the spacecraft, but engineers can calculate how much it has used with a high degree of accuracy. Therefore, the craft is in hibernation mode to conserve what little is left in ...

Pluribus imagines Kepler-22b as an ocean world that sends a gift to humanity through radio waves. In real life, no such ...

Scientists using NASA's Kepler spacecraft (see photo) to look for planets around other stars have been “surprised by the universe,” and the value of those surprises has earned the mission a four-year ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American The prolific planet-hunting spacecraft that ...

NASA's Kepler spacecraft has spotted 503 new potential alien worlds, some of which may be capable of supporting life as we know it. "Some of these new planet candidates are small and some reside in ...