SCIENCE ›
Skip Navigation
menu close modal

Multimedia

Kepler Full Focal Plane Image - Inverted

Kepler Full Focal Plane Image - Inverted

Inverted image (dark stars on light sky) Stars in the image are all brighter than magnitude 18.5. Stars brighter than 11.5 are "saturated" (all look the same brightness in the image).

Credit

NASA/Kepler mission

ENLARGE

Related

Kepler-11 is a sun-like star around which six planets orbit. At times, two or more planets pass in front of the star at once, as shown in this artist's conception of a simultaneous transit of three...
More
Extraordinary New Planetary System
Extraordinary New Planetary System
This image shows an Earth-like "exomoon" orbiting a gas giant planet in a star's habitable zone.
More
Habitable exomoon
Habitable exomoon
A night test of a small-scale starshade model shows how the starshade could block bright light from telescopes.
More
A demonstration of the starshade blocking starlight.
Starshade desert testing
This sky map shows the location of the star HD 219134 circle), host to the nearest confirmed rocky planet found to date outside of our solar system.
More
Location of Nearest Rocky Exoplanet Known
Location of Nearest Rocky Exoplanet Known
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 st...
More
Exo-eclipse in x-ray vision
Exo-eclipse in x-ray vision
Este planeta lejano puede parecer un refugio amigable… ¡pero no te dejes engañar! ¡El clima en este mundo es mortal! ¡El color azul cobalto del planeta proviene de una atmósfera brumosa e incendiar...
More
A poster done in the style of a vintage poster for a horror movie. Reading "Rains of Terror" It's death by a million cuts on this slasher planet. Jagged edges of glass can be seen battering a spacecraft on this alien world.
Lluvia de Terror
This artist's concept depicts a planetary system discovered by Aleksander Wolszczan in 1992 around a pulsar.
More
Extreme Planets
Extreme Planets
While there is much debate over which exoplanet discovery is considered the "first," one stands out from the rest. In 1995, scientists discovered 51 Pegasi b, forever changing the way we see the un...
More
Greetings from your First Exoplanet
Greetings from your First Exoplanet
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars know...
More
NASA's Kepler announces 11 new planetary systems
NASA's Kepler announces 11 new planetary systems
Researchers have detected the first "exomoon" candidate -- a moon orbiting a planet that lies outside our solar system. Using a technique called "microlensing," they observed what could be either a...
More
Moon or Planet? The 'Exomoon Hunt' Continues (Artist's Concept)
Moon or Planet? The 'Exomoon Hunt' Continues (Artist's Concept)
This artist's concept illustrates two planetary systems -- 55 Cancri (top) and our own. Blue lines show the orbits of planets, including the dwarf planet Pluto in our solar system.
More
Our Solar System's Cousin?
Our Solar System's Cousin?
Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have detected what they believe is an alien world just two-thirds the size of Earth one of the smallest on record.
More
Exoplanet is Extremely Hot and Incredibly Close (Artist's Concept)
Exoplanet is Extremely Hot and Incredibly Close (Artist's Concept)
The flower you see in this picture isn’t NASA’s attempt to celebrate the coming of spring. It’s actually the latest design in a cutting-edge effort to take pictures of planets orbiting stars far fr...
More
Flower power: NASA starshade petal prototype
Flower power: NASA starshade petal prototype
In the depths of the universe, the cores of two collapsed stars violently merge to release a burst of the deadliest and most powerful form of light, known as gamma rays.
More
Two astronauts are standing on an asteroid, watching a pair of neutron stars, or the cores of collapsed stars, collide in the distance. The result of the collision is bright, concentrated beams of light called gamma rays. The gamma ray bursts narrowly miss the astronauts as they shoot outward from the collision.
Gamma Ray Ghouls
A unique feature of the seventh Kepler candidate catalog is that it is the first to fully automate the assessment of transit-like signals. The total height of each bar shows the total number of Kep...
More
Assessment of Kepler Dataset
Assessment of Kepler Dataset
First light image from two of the CCD modules of the Kepler mission.
More
Kepler first light image: 2 CCD modules
Kepler first light image: 2 CCD modules
This year we celebrate the discovery of 51 Pegasi b in October, 1995. This giant planet is about half the size of Jupiter and orbits its star in about 4 days. '51 Peg’ helped launch a whole new fie...
More
The discovery that changed the way we see our universe: 51 Pegasi b
The discovery that changed the way we see our universe: 51 Pegasi b
This artist's concept illustrates a young, red dwarf star surrounded by three planets.
More
Planets Under a Red Sun
Planets Under a Red Sun
An unusual, methane-free world is partially eclipsed by its star in this artist's concept.
More
Exotic Exoplanet
Exotic Exoplanet
Researchers using data from NASA's Kepler space telescope have shown that migrating planets stop their inward journey before reaching their stars, as illustrated in this artist's concept.
More
On the Road Toward a Star, Planets Halt Their Migration (Artist Concept)
On the Road Toward a Star, Planets Halt Their Migration (Artist Concept)
This artist's illustration gives an impression of how common planets are around the stars in the Milky Way.
More
Planets everywhere
Planets everywhere
This graph of data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows how astronomers located a hot spot on a distant gas planet named upsilon Andromedae b -- and learned that it was in the wrong place.
More
How to Find a Planetary Hot Spot
How to Find a Planetary Hot Spot
A series of images of a distant gas giant reveal its orbit around its star Beta Pictoris, located some 60 light-years from Earth.
More
Gemini Planet Imager shows darting exoplanet
Gemini Planet Imager shows darting exoplanet
NASA's Kepler spacecraft has spotted a planet that alternately runs late and early in its orbit because a second, "invisible" world is tugging on it. This is the first definite detection of a previ...
More
An Invisible World
An Invisible World
Algo extraño y misterioso se arrastra por el cosmos. Los científicos lo llaman materia oscura. 
More
Una red luminosa es visible en el cielo nocturno más allá del límite de un bosque. Dispersa entre los nodos de la red está la oscuridad, que denota la presencia de materia oscura. En el centro de la telaraña, la oscuridad se funde para crear la forma de una araña.
Materia Oscura

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