Kepler Telescope Found New Planets Better Than Earth The Kepler Telescope was built for one purpose; to look at a certain patch in the Milky Way in search of exoplanets. The exoplanet hunter observed over hundreds of thousands of stars and discovered thousands of exoplanets during its lifetime. | Destiny Media

After nine years in space, NASA’s Kepler has reached its end. The Kepler and K2 Missions have discovered over 2,600 confirmed exoplanets so far, including some in the habitable zones of their stars. Kepler used transits — regular dips in a star’s brightness caused by orbiting planets — to find new worlds. It’s the same method being used by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite - TESS. In a way, Kepler has passed the planet-finding torch on to TESS, which will scan nearly the entire sky. L