The “Dead” Telescope Finds Jupiter’s Twin From Above The Grave

NASA’s Kepler space telescope spotted a Jupiter-like object in a new discovery. This was even though it had stopped operation four years ago.

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A team of international astrophysicists used NASA’s Kepler satellite telescope to find an exoplanet that is similar to Jupiter at 17,000 light-years from Earth. This makes it the most distant exoplanet Kepler has ever discovered. In 2016 Kepler data captured the exoplanet. It was officially named K2-2016-BLG0005Lb. Kepler has observed more than 2,700 confirmed planets during its lifetime.

“Kepler was also capable of observing uninterrupted by weather and daylight, allowing us the precise mass of the exoplanet as well as its orbital distance to its host Star,” Eamonn Kerins (an astronomer at Manchester in the U.K.), stated in a statement. It is Jupiter’s twin in terms its mass and position relative to its sun. This is approximately 60% of Jupiter’s own sun.