Kepler Mission: A search for habitable planets

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NASA's first mission capable of finding Earth size planets

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Nasa has blasted a 5m-long telescope into space from Cape Canaveral to look for other planets like Earth. Over the next three and a half years, the Kepler telescope will study the brightness of more than 100,000 stars. By monitoring the light from those stars really closely, it will be able to tell when any planets pass between it and the star by the amount the light dims. The telescope has the largest camera ever launched into space. Scientists say trying to detect Earth-like planets passing in front of their stars will be like trying to spot a very tiny flea in a car's headlight!

Via CBBC Newsround