Reports of the death of our principal planet hunter have been greatly exaggerated. The prolific Kepler space telescope
may instead be entering early retirement, spending its golden years seeking out planets with a gravitational magnifying glass.
Since its launch in 2009, NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 132 exoplanets and thousands of other possible worlds, making it one of the most celebrated exoplanet missions.
To catch sight of far-off worlds, Kepler must stare at stars with an unwavering eye, looking for tiny dips in starlight when a planet transits, or crosses in front of, its host star. To do this, the craft needs at least three orientation-controlling reaction wheels to stabilise its vision. Two of its four wheels have now failed.
Shaky eyesight doesn't have to mean curtains for Kepler, says Keith Horne of the University of St Andrews, UK. He and Andrew Gould at Ohio State University in Columbus suggest that the hobbled telescope can use its gear to take up microlensing, an alternative way to spot planets.
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