Revamped Kepler spacecraft finds another exoplanet
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.028513
Ars Technica : Since its launch by NASA in 2009, the Kepler spacecraft has found more than 4000 planet candidates. Although crippled in 2013 by the failure of two of its four reaction wheels, Kepler has been returned to active duty by NASA scientists, who found a way to use the craft’s solar panels to point it in the right direction. Now Kepler has been able to continue its original mission of discovering Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. Although the new data are not as precise, Andrew Vanderburg of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and colleagues were able to spot yet another planet, HIP 116454b, which is 2.5 times the diameter of Earth and orbits a star that is smaller and cooler than the Sun.
