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The planet-hunting Kepler space telescope is dead

The spacecraft’s mission is officially over after 9½ years

Kepler telescope illustration

KEPLER'S CURTAIN CALL NASA’s Kepler space telescope, shown in this artist’s illustration, found thousands of planets orbiting other stars. 

NASA

By Lisa Grossman

NASA’s premier planet-hunting space telescope is out of gas.

The Kepler space telescope can no longer search for planets orbiting other stars, ending its nearly 10-year mission, officials from the agency announced in a news conference on October 30.

“Because of fuel exhaustion, the Kepler spacecraft has reached the end of its service life,” said Charlie Sobeck, a project system engineer at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.