NASA shows last images of Kepler space telescopetel

NASA has released the latest images captured by the Kepler Space Telescope. The mission was terminated at the end of last year when the fuel ran out. The latter images can help interpret images of the Kepler successor, among other things.

Some of the latter images overlap with images from the new Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, the successor to the Kepler telescope. The overlap is useful, according to NASA, because it allows astronomers to see the differences between the old and new space telescope and to better interpret the data from the TESS.

The last images from the Kepler Space Telescope were taken 9.5 years after the first images. The images now released by NASA were taken on September 25, about a month before the space telescope was retired. The last images show the constellation Aquarius. There is also a glimpse of the Trappist-1 galaxy in the footage.

The last image contains a number of black holes, which is because the Kepler telescope’s cameras failed during the mission. However, the modular design ensured that this did not affect the other instruments.

Kepler was launched on March 6, 2009 and was active until October 30, 2018. In that time, 2662 exoplanets have been discovered based on data from the space telescope. The mission took years longer than originally planned. Although the mission has come to an end, many new discoveries are expected to be made from data that has not yet been explored.

The first and last images from the Kepler Space Telescope