Hidden in the Heavens: How the Kepler Mission’s Quest for New Planets Changed How We View Our Own

An insider's account of the NASA mission that changed our understanding of planets, planetary systems, and the stars they orbit Are we alone in the universe? It's a fundamental question for Earth-dwelling humankind. Are there other worlds like ours, out there somewhere? In Hidden in the Heavens, Jason Steffen, a former scientist on NASA's Kepler mission, describes how that mission searched for planets orbiting Sun-like stars—especially Earth-like planets circulating in Earth-like orbits. What the Kepler space telescope found, Steffen reports, contradicted centuries of theoretical and observational work and transformed our understanding of planets, planetary systems, and the stars they orbit. Kepler discovered thousands of planets orbiting distant stars—a bewildering variety of celestial bodies, including rocky planets being vaporized by the intense heat of their host star; super-Earths and sub-Neptunes, with properties simultaneously similar to and...