Kepler Begins Search for Other 'Earths'

NASA's planet-hunting spacecraft Kepler was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral last night, Space.com reports. Kepler, the widest-field telescope ever sent into space, will spend the next three years scanning the sky for a planet in the "Goldilocks zone" where conditions are just right for liquid water to exist and for life to take hold.

"We have a feeling like we're about to set sail across an ocean to discover a new world," said the project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It's sort of the same feeling Columbus or Magellan must have had." The $600 million spacecraft will start scanning after a few weeks of health checks and will send its findings back to Earth monthly.
(More Kepler spacecraft stories.)