OTD…March 6 and Kepler

Ground controllers have beamed the final commands to NASA’s Kepler telescope, turning off the spacecraft’s transmitters and disabling the craft’s automatic recovery software after the planet-hunting observatory ran out of fuel last month.

Analysis of data from NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope has revealed a near Earth-size world orbiting in the habitable zone of a sun-like star, scientists announced Thursday, the closest match yet in the ongoing hunt for planets similar in size to Earth where life, as humans understand it, might have a chance to evolve.

A Delta 2 rocket has lifted off from California’s Central Coast on Saturday with a NASA environmental satellite designed to improve flood and drought forecasts, map moisture in Earth’s soils, and track the planet’s water cycle.