Kepler Telescope by the Numbers

摘要

$680 million: The cost of the Kepler planet-hunting mission at its launch in March 2009. 156,000: The number of stars in the constellations Lyra and Cygnus that the Kepler observatory is staring at 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in the search for extra-solar planets. 1,235: The number of potential alien planets that Kepler has discovered as of Feb. 2. NASA has repeatedly cautioned that all of Kepler's findings must be confirmed by follow-up observations using other space and ground telescopes. 662: The number of planet candidates found by Kepler that would be about the size of Neptune.