Is NASA Kepler Spacecraft In Danger 75 Million Miles From Earth?
NASA's Kepler space telescope is facing some danger. NASA declared that the Kepler spacecraft entered Emergency Mode (EM) when the agency made contact with it on Thursday, April 7.
EM, the lowest operational mode, is also fuel intensive. Hence, the Kepler team gives crucial importance to recover Kepler from EM.
The first mission for Kepler was over four years ago when it located almost 5,000 exoplanets, a 1,000 of which were confirmed to be exoplanets.
Another mission was started in 2014. The spacecraft is carrying out the K2 mission, or the repurposed mission of the space telescope. It is scanning millions of stars in the center of the Milky Way so that it can search for remote stars' planetary outposts and exoplanets wandering between the stars and the telescope.
Locating the planets is based on the gravity of massive objects, such as stars and planets, which produces a significant effect on measuring nearby objects. Still, gravity also has an effect on light and tends to warp its direction when it passes close to huge objects. It thus makes gravity a lens which discloses exoplanets.
As it is about 75 million miles from the earth, there is slow communication with Kepler. It takes almost 13 minutes for a signal to reach the spacecraft and return.
The last contact with the spacecraft was on April 4, 2016, when the spacecraft was functioning effectively. But now, it seems to be in an emergency mode.
