The Work of the Kepler Telescope

The Johannes Kepler Inventor Johannes Kepler is remembered today as one of the most well-known and influential mathematicians and astronomers of the European Renaissance. He was born on December 27, 1571, and passed away on November 15, 1630. This telescope, which was made in 1611 (just three years after the discovery of the first telescope in the Netherlands). Although the process required a significant increase in the focal length between lenses, this telescope design became famous for its ability to achieve much higher magnification levels than the Galilean telescope (some telescopes even had 46-meter focal length). Kepler was able to make a number of significant discoveries while working with the telescope (Galileo was one of them) (4 moons of Jupiter).

Kepler's point of view

Kepler was a deeply religious man his entire life and it showed in everything he did. His entire body of work is replete with references to God, and he considered his work to be a fulfillment of his Christian obligation to comprehend the things that God had created. Kepler believed that because God created man in His image, man possessed the ability to comprehend the cosmos that God had fashioned. Kepler was convinced of this. In addition to this, Kepler was certain that God had constructed the universe in accordance with a predetermined mathematical blueprint (a belief found in the works of Plato and associated with Pythagoras). We now have a method for comprehending the cosmos thanks to the widespread belief that, at the time, mathematics offered a foolproof approach to discovering facts about the world (Euclid's common notions and postulates were regarded as actually being true).

The Kepler Space Telescope operated by NASA

The Kepler Space Telescope was an observatory in space operated by NASA that was devoted to the search for planets outside of our solar system, with a particular emphasis on the search for planets that might be similar to Earth. From the time of its launch in March 2009 until the day of its decommission on November 15, 2018, the observatory was operational for a little under nine years total. After 9 years of research, the Kepler space telescope revealed to us that the majority of stars have at least one planet orbiting around them. Since its initial launch in 2009, the Kepler space telescope has been responsible for the discovery of thousands of extrasolar planets, also known as exoplanets.

Exploring the Multitude of Exoplanets: The Surprising Diversity of Planetary Systems in the Galaxy

The number of planets far exceeds that of stars: The discovery that our galaxy contains more planets than stars was made possible by Kepler, and the implications of this finding for our scientific comprehension of our position in the universe are profound. Planets come in a variety of forms; Kepler's discoveries have shown us that there are many different kinds of planets, which has opened our minds to new possibilities. Even solar systems have a variety of subtypes! Kepler discovered planetary systems that orbited close to their parent stars that had significantly more planets than our own inner solar system, which has four planets. These systems had as many as eight planets.

The Resilience of the Kepler Spacecraft in its Search for Exoplanets

Kepler enjoyed phenomenal success during its first few years of business operation. It focused its attention on a particular region of the sky, where it monitored approximately 150,000 stars in search of planetary transits. However, in 2012, some of the spacecraft's equipment that was supposed to keep it steady developed a malfunction. The following year, the situation continued to deteriorate, and researchers became concerned that the spacecraft might not survive the ordeal. By utilizing the Sun, they were able to maintain control of the spacecraft for a period of 83 days at a time. As a result of the development, NASA was able to begin a new mission with the spacecraft that it designated as K2.

The Passing of Kepler: The Tragic End of a Great Scientist

Kepler died in Regensburg, after a short illness. He was on his way to collect some money that was owed to him in connection with the Rudolphine Tables, and he was staying in the city on the way there. He was laid to rest in the community church; however, the building that housed the tomb was demolished during the Thirty Years' War, and there is no trace of the tomb today.