It’s a human experience to look up at the night sky and wonder what’s out there, but also to have that feeling where you feel so small, so insignificant. We speculate there might be other life out there, but up until now it’s been confined to the realm of science fiction, to ‘Star Trek,’ ” Batalha said. “We’re taking this big step towards understanding if life might be common in our galaxy.
Kepeler is a spacecraft that will be orbiting the sun in interplanetary space specifically to look for extrasolar planets. We already have a catalog of 300 such planets, many observed first by amateur astronomers in their back yards. Dedicating a spacecraft capable of seeing which of 50,000 headlights has a flea on it is certain to generate some wonder and weirdness.
That’s pretty fucking exciting.