Just days before NASA’s Planet Hunter spacecraft, Kepler was about to send to its next embargo, the center of Milky Way Galaxy, the spacecraft was seen slipping into a state of emergency on Sunday evening.
The $600 million worth spacecraft, that has detected nearly 5000 planets outside our solar system, was working perfectly fine when the scientist contacted the spacecraft last on April 4.
Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, NASA reported that Kepler remained in its “lowest operational mode”, which is “fuel intensive”.
“Even at the speed of light, it takes 13 minutes for a signal to travel to the spacecraft and back,” mission manager Charlie Sobeck said in a statement. Recovering from this emergency condition “is the team’s priority at this time”, Sobeck said.
Previously Kepler has survived several crises which the spacecraft has dealt it. Launched in 2009, Kepler completed its original mission in 2012 that was finding more than 1000 confirmed planets.
Despite repeated breakdowns and slowing the process of finding new planets, the spacecraft post 2012 began a mission called K2, aiming to not only scan for planets but to collect data on supernovas, the formation of stars and asteroids and comets.
It was last year only that Kepler discovered an Earth 2.0 or Kepler 452b which is probably the closest found twin of our planet. This planet is ‘habitable’ but the caveat is that the planet is just 1400 light years far from us.
Another one of the recent feathers to its cap was when the spacecraft captured an exploding star, click here.
Image Credit: Wikipedia
