Kepler Telescope Functional Again

For the first time in a year, the Kepler telescope managed to observe a distant exoplanet today.  The Kepler telescope suffered a mechanical failure last year, losing its ability to stay stable.  The telescope found exoplanets by looking for eclipsing binary systems.  Since the planets are usually extremely small compared to the stars, the precision must be very high for the telescope to detect the dimming of the star from an eclipse and time how long the eclipse lasts.  The unsteadiness caused by the mechanical failure meant that the telescope could not reach the desired precision to carry out its mission.  But the smart people who worked on the Kepler team came up with an idea last year to use radiation pressure from the Sun to hold the telescope steady, which can last up to 75 days at a time.  The plan was put into action just this year and the telescope looked at a known exoplanet found by another telescope and confirmed its location.  This means that the radiation induced stability worked as planned and the telescope is functional once again.

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