Space telescope "Kepler", which is designed to search for exoplanets, planets circulating outside the Solar system, the major part of their mission completed, but the work will continue for four years. The message was recently published on the website NASA.

After three and a half years of work, the space telescope helped scientists discover more than 2000 objects, claiming the title of exoplanets. The number of found with it and confirmed exoplanets by November 2012 was 105 units. These included as gas giants, which rotate close to their stars and supersell, planets that are larger than a bit of our Land. Were found also stars with several planets.

To extend the mission for another, it was decided in April 2012. Over the next four years, the search will focus mainly on planets like Earth, as stated in the press release at NASA.

"Kepler" uses to detect exoplanets so-called transit method. Is this method that the presence of planets around a star, makes her Shine while passing them through the star-disk periodically reduced. This decrease is usually very small. So, for example, for the Earth and Sun, it would have amounted to only 84 ppm, but, as demonstrated by the success of the project, it can easily be fixed.

The main element of the space telescope are cooled photometers high sensitivity with low noise. They do not cease to fix the emission of more than 150,000 stars and then send to the Ground received data. Information obtained by using the "Kepler", available to Amateurs, not only to professional astronomers.