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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).

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NASA/Kepler mission

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This chart compares the smallest known exoplanets, or planets orbiting outside the solar system, to our own planets Mars and Earth.
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Smallest exoplanets compared to Earth and Mars
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PSO J318.5-22 belongs to a special class of planets called rogue, or free-floating, planets. Wandering alone in the galaxy, they do not orbit a parent star.  These rogue planets glow faintly from t...
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PSO J318.5-22
Where the Nightlife Never Ends
Spitzer Mission Manager Joseph Hunt stands in Mission Control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on Jan. 30, 2020, declaring the spacecraft decommissioned and the Spitzer ...
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Men and women applauding in mission control as Spitzer's mission is declared over.
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A graphic of present and future exoplanet missions from space agencies and observatories around the world.
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A picture of future missions.
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Artist's rendering of the "super-Jupiter" Kappa Andromedae b
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Star Cluster NGC 6791 from Kepler First Light Image
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Today Kepler-452b is receiving 10 percent more energy from its parent star than the Earth is from the Sun. If Kepler-452b had the same mass as Earth it would be on the verge of experiencing the run...
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First light image from two of the CCD modules of the Kepler mission.
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Explore Alien Worlds

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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.
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Strange New Worlds

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

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