Kepler leaves in search of other Earth-like planets

The Kepler spaceship left our planet on Friday, March 6th from Cape Canaveral, Florida for its three and a half year long trip to find other planets in our region of the Milky Way that resemble our own. In one of its reports NASA said that the main objectives of this spacecraft are to:

• Determine the percentage of terrestrial and larger planets there are in or near the habitable zone of a wide variety of stars;
• Determine the distribution of sizes and shapes of the orbits of these planets;
• Estimate how many planets there are in multiple-star systems;
• Determine the variety of orbit sizes and planet reflectivities, sizes, masses and densities of short-period giant planets;
• Identify additional members of each discovered planetary system using other techniques; and
• Determine the properties of those stars that harbor planetary systems.

For those of you out there that are keen on astrology and love to see rockets and satellites get blown into orbit, here's a video showing the launch of the 2200lbs of fuel per second burning Kepler spaceship.