[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 176 (Friday, November 2, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1489-E1490]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           TRIBUTE IN HONOR OF NASA'S KEPLER SPACE TELESCOPE

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                           HON. ANNA G. ESHOO

                             of california

                  in the house of representatives

                        Friday, November 2, 2018

  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor NASA's Kepler Space 
Telescope on its retirement and to commend the many thousands of NASA 
personnel who designed and maintained Kepler and analyzed data received 
from it.
  Launched in March, 2009, Kepler spent nine years in deep space 
collecting data that indicate our sky is filled with billions of hidden 
planets--even more planets than stars. Now

[[Page E1490]]

Kepler has run out of fuel, and will be retired in its current safe 
orbit, away from Earth.
  ``As NASA's first planet-hunting mission, Kepler has wildly exceeded 
all our expectations and paved the way for our exploration and search 
for life in the solar system and beyond,'' said Thomas Zurbuchen, 
Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in 
Washington. ``Not only did it show us how many planets could be out 
there, it sparked an entirely new and robust field of research that has 
taken the science community by storm. Its discoveries have shed a new 
light on our place in the universe, and illuminated the tantalizing 
mysteries and possibilities among the stars.''
  Kepler showed us the diversity of planets in our galaxy, and 
concluded that 20 to 50 percent of the stars visible in the night sky 
are likely to have small, possibly rocky planets similar in size to 
Earth. Many of these could possibly sustain life.
  ``When we started conceiving this mission 35 years ago we didn't know 
of a single planet outside our solar system,'' said the Kepler 
mission's founding principal investigator, William Borucki, now retired 
from NASA's Ames Research Center and the recipient of the 2013 United 
States National Academy of Sciences' Henry Draper Medal for his work 
with Kepler and the 2015 recipient of the Shaw Prize in Astronomy.
  ``Now that we know planets are everywhere, Kepler has set us on a new 
course that's full of promise for future generations to explore our 
galaxy.''
  Kepler's retirement doesn't mean the end of its contributions to our 
scientific knowledge. Future missions will build on its results and 
scientists will mine the data Kepler collected for years to come.
  NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley manages 
the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
  Mr. Speaker, I'm very proud to represent NASA Ames and its 
extraordinary programs that advance our knowledge of our planet and 
beyond. I ask the entire House of Representatives to honor Kepler and 
each person and organization who contributed to its extraordinary 
success.

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