Kepler Mission Extended to 2016

[Airbrush]

How did I miss this news about my favorite Astro mission?

 

"....So granting Kepler at least four more years gives it a chance to look for planets in more distant orbits, allowing the telescope to survey the habitable zones of warmer stars. (It could take a hypothetical alien version of Kepler up to three years, after all, to see Earth transit the sun three times.) Seeing more transits will also increase the signal-to-noise ratio for closer-in planets, allowing more of them to be detected, researchers have said.

 

The review committee's report did not explicitly lay out funding for Kepler's extended operations, but Kepler team members have said that it costs about $20 million per year to operate the mission at its current level."

 

http://www.space.com/15160-alien-planet-kepler-mission-2016.html