Skip Navigation

Multimedia

NASA's Kepler Mission By the Numbers

Kepler was in orbit 9.6 years, used 3.12 gallons of fuel, observed 530,506 stars and led to the discovery of 2,662 planets.

During 9.6 years in orbit, the Kepler space telescope observed more than half a million stars and discovered more than 2,600 planets. See the mission by the numbers.

Credit

NASA

ENLARGE

Related

Launched in March 2009, NASA’s first planet-hunter confirmed more than 2,600 planets beyond our solar system. "Many stars have planets. A lot of these planets are Earth-sized. That's Kepler's legacy. This new knowledge that we have about planets around other stars."
More
Video documentary about the legacy of the Kepler space telescope.
Kepler End of Flight Documentary
The stars TESS studies are 30 to 100 times brighter than those the Kepler mission and K2 follow-up surveyed, enabling far easier follow-up observations with both ground-based and space-based telescopes. TESS will also cover a sky area 400 times larger than that monitored by Kepler.
More
Cartoon animation of the Kepler space telescope passing a torch to the TESS spacecraft.
Animation: Kepler Passes the Torch to TESS
This image shows an Earth-like "exomoon" orbiting a gas giant planet in a star's habitable zone.
More
Habitable exomoon
Habitable exomoon
A detailed explanation into the workings of the coronagraph and how it can help directly image exoplanets.
More
How will coronagraphs be used to directly image exoplanets and search for life.
The Search for Alien Earths - How Coronagraphs Find Hidden Planets
This artist's concept illustrates an icy planet-forming disk around a young star called TW Hydrae, located about 175 light-years away in the Hydra, or Sea Serpent, constellation.
More
Misty Star in the Sea Serpent
Misty Star in the Sea Serpent
Astronomers have discovered two gas giant planets orbiting stars in the Beehive cluster, a collection of about 1,000 tightly packed stars.
More
Starry Starry Skies (Artist's Concept)
Starry Starry Skies (Artist's Concept)
From the first three years of Kepler data, more than 3,500 potential worlds have emerged.
More
Residential Candidates
Residential Candidates
There are 4,696 planet candidates now known with the release of the seventh Kepler planet candidate catalog - an increase of 521 since the release of the previous catalog in Jan. 2015.
More
Kepler Planet Candidates, July 2015
Kepler Planet Candidates, July 2015
The artist's concept depicts Kepler-62f, a super-Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a star smaller and cooler than the sun, located about 1,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra.
More
Kepler-62f, a Small Habitable Zone World (Artist Concept)
Kepler-62f, a Small Habitable Zone World (Artist Concept)
For the first time since exoplanets, or planets around stars other than the sun, were discovered almost 20 years ago, X-ray observations have detected an exoplanet passing in front of its parent star.
More
Exo-eclipse in x-ray vision
Exo-eclipse in x-ray vision
This artist's concept shows a hypothetical "rejuvenated" planet -- a gas giant that has reclaimed its youthful infrared glow.
More
Hypothetical 'Rejuvenated' Planets (Artist's Concept)
Hypothetical 'Rejuvenated' Planets (Artist's Concept)
The diagram compares the planets of the inner solar system to Kepler-62, a five-planet system about 1,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra.
More
Kepler-62 and the Solar System
Kepler-62 and the Solar System
Kepler-10b must be a scorched world, orbiting at a distance that's more than 20 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our own Sun, with a daytime temperature expected to be more than 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
More
Imagined View from Planet Kepler 10-B
Imagined View from Planet Kepler 10-B
The doomed egg-shaped exoplanet WASP-12b is a hot Jupiter that orbits so close to its parent star, it's being torn apart.
More
An interactive 3D planet model of WASP-12b.
WASP-12b 3D Model
This illustration shows the unusual orbit of planet Kepler-413b around a close pair of orange and red dwarf stars. The planet's 66-day orbit is tilted 2.5 degrees with respect to the plane of the binary stars' orbit. The orbit of the planet wobbles around the central stars over 11 years, an effect called precession.
More
Wobbly Planet Orbital Schematic (Illustration)
Wobbly Planet Orbital Schematic (Illustration)
Astronomers have discovered a transiting exoplanet with the longest known year. Located beyond the "snow line" this planet may give clues about planetary migration.
More
Transiting Exoplanet with Longest Known Year
Transiting Exoplanet with Longest Known Year
This illustration shows one of the three newly discovered planets in the star cluster Messier 67.
More
Messier 67: Star Cluster
Messier 67: Star Cluster
Using data from NASA's Kepler and Spitzer Space Telescopes, scientists have made the most precise measurement ever of the size of a world outside our solar system, as illustrated in this artist's conception.
More
Gauging an Alien World's Size (Artist Concept)
Gauging an Alien World's Size (Artist Concept)
Like ancient explorers who looked to the stars to guide them to new worlds, astronomers today use stars to discover worlds many light years beyond our solar system. By studying stars and their unique influence, we can learn a great deal about their worlds – even their potential to sustain life as we know it.
More
Illustrations of different star types
The Lives of Stars
This artist's concept illustrates Kepler-47, the first transiting circumbinary system -- multiple planets orbiting two suns – 4,900 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus.
More
Sharing the Light of Two Suns
Sharing the Light of Two Suns
GJ1214b, shown in this artist's view, is a super-Earth orbiting a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth.
More
Artist's View of Extrasolar Planet GJ1214b
Artist's View of Extrasolar Planet GJ1214b
This artist's concept shows "The Behemoth," an enormous comet-like cloud of hydrogen bleeding off of a warm, Neptune-sized planet just 30 light-years from Earth. Also depicted is the parent star (a faint red dwarf) of expolanet GJ 436.
More
"Behemoth" Bleeding Atmosphere Around a Warm Exoplanet
"Behemoth" Bleeding Atmosphere Around a Warm Exoplanet
At only four light-years away, Proxima b is our closest known exoplanet neighbor.
More
An interactive 3D planet model of Proxima b.
Proxima b 3D Model
Artist's representation of the "habitable zone," the range of orbits where liquid water is permitted on the surface of a planet.
More
Odds are on Oodles of Earths
Odds are on Oodles of Earths
This artist's conception shows the silhouette of a rocky planet, dubbed HD 219134b, as it passes in front of its star.
More
Little Black Spot on the Star Today (Artist's Concept)
Little Black Spot on the Star Today (Artist's Concept)

Explore Alien Worlds

Exoplanet Travel Bureau

This set of travel posters envision a day when the creativity of scientists and engineers will allow us to do things we can only dream of now.
More

Strange New Worlds

Explore an interactive gallery of some of the most intriguing and exotic planets discovered so far.
More
A planetary tour through time. The ancients debated the existence of planets beyond our own; now we know of thousands.

Historic Timeline

A planetary tour through time. The ancients debated the existence of planets beyond our own; now we know of thousands.
More