The End of Kepler

The end of the Kepler spacecraft is here. In fact, Kepler officially ended operations last month, on October 30th, when it finally ran out of fuel. This was expected as there's only so much fuel that can be stored and re-fueling is not an option given it's location in Earth's orbit about the Sun.

Launch of the Kepler spacecraft taken by NASA/Regina Mitchell-Ryall, Tom Farrar.

The Kepler spacecraft provided astronomers with a massive wealth of data to find exoplanets in other solar systems. As of October 29, 2018, Kepler had confirmed 2,681 exoplanets with another 2,899 exoplanets possibilities waiting to be analyzed. Wow! You can read further details here:

Kepler planet hunter ends operations after exhausting fuel

The search for exoplanets will continue with the TESS spacecraft, which launched in April 2018. Exoplanets everywhere!