NASA tries to bring back Kepler

Despite a couple of bad wheels (which is pretty much the end of a career for an NFL running back or an Olympic runner), the NASA planet-finding Kepler mission might possibly have a plan to keep going.

How NASA revived the Kepler Space Telescope

Well, it's not for sure yet, but they're going to see if this plan works.  The basics are illustrated here (click so you can see it full size, if you're interested).

By the way, isn't it amazing what Kepler has done regarding the prospects for life (maybe even intelligent life) elsewhere in the galaxy and Universe?   It used to be one big unknown was if other stars had planets.  Now it seems that the odds that a star doesn't have planets of some kind are higher than the odds a star will have planets of some kind.