Interesting article. Great illustration from our galaxy

Interesting article. Great illustration from our galaxy

Originally shared by Stellar Eyes

Kepler's Search Area.

Kepler is studying over 150,000 stars in our neighborhood of our galaxy in the Cygnus and Lyra constellations. Most of these stars will be somewhere between 500 and 3,000 light years from our Solar System. The Kepler team has now identified 503 additional planet candidates in this small region of the sky. The telescope uses the transit method which involves observing repeated transit of planets in front of their stars, which causes a slight reduction in the star's apparent magnitude.

Although the Kepler spacecraft remains in its Point Rest State, scientist and citizens still have years of data to sift through.

-See more at: http://stellareyes.com/component/k2/item/29-kepler-finds-503-new-exo-planet-candidates.html#sthash.WkSTXcLu.dpuf