If you are anything like me, then you spent a lot of time with the planets as a kid.  Growing up in the 1980s was amazing because of the Voyager spacecrafts. I was always hunting for the latest images from Uranus and Neptune in the daily newspaper and in magazines, so I could cut them out and paste them into my scrapbook. At the same time I was impatient for another mission to Mars.

Back then it was common to hear that there were probably few if any planets around other stars, unlike in the movies. The limited evidence for the existence of exoplanets suggested to some scientists that planet-making was a difficult process, and that our home star was unique in all the galaxy.  Now we know this is not the case.  Exoplanets are everywhere! Although the detection technologies we use today are biased to huge Jupiter-sized or bigger exoplanets close to their parent stars, the rapid pace of exoplanetary discovery suggests that planetary formation is in fact widespread.  Detection technology is also improving so that we can start exploring other regions around stars. Might there be planets in habitable zones around other stars, the same zone around the Sun we find our own watery, pleasant, life-covered Earth?

Last Friday, the Kepler spacecraft was successfully launched to begin a multi-year mission to look for just those types of planets.  Kepler will observe thousands of stars, looking for extremely slight variations in brightness that may indicate transits, or events where planets move in front of their parent star from the spacecraft’s viewing perspective. The detector on board the spacecraft is so powerful that it could possibly detect Earth-like planets in Earth-like orbits around distant stars.

As an operations specialist on a Mars-related mission, I cannot say that I am “bored” with our solar system.  On the contrary, in a galaxy with trillions of planets, might not our own planets be like snowflakes, unique unto themselves? What I can say is that missions like Kepler keep expanding, and confirming, my interest in planetary science! Meanwhile, Mars keeps surprising us, suggesting that exoplanets will also be unique and complex targets for further exploration. Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? In planetary science, the answer is a resounding “No!” Best success to Kepler and its team!

Image credit: Kepler Mission website – “Target Region in Milky Way (2)“