WITH the discovery of planets around distant stars in the Milky Way now almost routine, it takes evidence of planets beyond our own galaxy to turn heads — and that's what Erin Mentuch at the University of Toronto in Canada has produced. (newscientist.com)
Its discovery proved that the Kepler spacecraft, which was launched in March 2009, could indeed do what its designers had boldly promised: find small, Earth - size planets around distant stars, a task that once seemed so difficult as to border on the absurd. (discovermagazine.com)
It has been used to detect planets around distant stars within the Milky Way galaxy, and was among the first methods used to confirm Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. (sciencedaily.com)