Keplers

Keplers is a plural form that may refer to different uses of the name Kepler. One sense is as a surname; the name is of German origin, and notable bearers include Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), a key figure in the scientific revolution. Kepler contributed to astronomy, optics, and mathematics, and is best known for formulating the laws of planetary motion that describe how planets orbit the Sun.

A second common usage is the NASA space telescope named Kepler, which was launched in 2009 to search for exoplanets by monitoring the brightness of stars for transits. Kepler observed a large portion of the sky and produced a catalog of planet candidates, ultimately confirming hundreds of exoplanets and revealing many multi-planet systems. The mission greatly influenced estimates of how common planets are in the galaxy and the diversity of planetary systems. After two reaction-wheel failures in 2013, the mission continued in a modified two-wheel mode as the Kepler-2 (K2) mission until observations ended in 2018. The data collected by Kepler remain a foundational resource for exoplanet science, informing statistical studies and follow-up observations of distant worlds, including planets in or near their stars’ habitable zones.