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One of my favorite stories from 2014 was the rebirth of the Kepler space telescope. It has revolutionized our knowledge of extrasolar planets, which has also led to greater understanding of our own Solar System.

But in 2013 it looked like its days of hunting planets were over. It's able to point steadily and accurately by using three stabilizers. When it only had two, that looked like the end. But in 2014 an ingenious solutiion was proposed and that has put Kepler back to work. The new mission is called K2 and during its tests last year another new planet was discovered.

The Kepler mission rated a second story in my Top Ten Astronomy Stories 2014. Although the telescope was inactive at the time, people are still looking through the masses of data that it provided.

Last April the discovery was announced of the first Earth-sized planet in its star's habitable zone. This was Kepler-186f which, along with four other planets, orbits a red dwarf called Kepler-186. Its name indicates that it wasn't just the planets, but also the star itself, that Kepler discovered.

The original Kepler mission has provided over 4000 candidate exoplanets. An announcement was made last week that the 1000th confirmed planet was discovered in the last batch. This batch includes eight planets that are probably rocky and definitely in their star's habitable zone. This doesn't mean that there is life on any of them, but it does mean we're getting closer to finding Earthlike worlds.

The Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), which manages some of NASA's missions, has created some travel posters for exoplanets. One of them is for Kepler-16b a planet with two suns. In the Star Wars movies, Luke Skywalker came from a planet with two suns, but it was much more favorable to life than Kepler-16b.

The planet Kepler-186f was the first Earth-sized planet discovered in its star's habitable zone. It's one of five known planets orbiting its star. It was one of my Top Ten Astronomy Stories 2014. Here is JPL's travel poster for potential visitors! The star Kepler-186 is a red dwarf star. Its spectrum is different to that of our Sun, so if there were photosynthesizing life there, it might well use redder pigments to trap its star's energy.

The Kepler Space Telescope's K2 mission has discovered its first planetary system. It was announced last week. University of Arizona researchers have found three planets orbiting Star EPIC 201367065 (not exactly a catchy name!). The largest of the three is only twice the size of the Earth. The outermost planet orbits in the star's habitable zone, i.e., the region where water could be liquid on the surface.

K2 is the name given to the Kepler mission after someone figured out how to keep it working without its full guidance system.

The reborn Kepler's K2 mission is well into its fourth observing campaign. It's undertaking observations of nearly 16,000 target stars. This will include the two best known open star clusters in the sky, the Pleaides (Seven Sisters) and the Hyades, both in the constellation Taurus.

As if there weren't enough work to do, the Kepler team is also still analyzing data from the original Kepler mission.

Here is a graphic summarizing the Kepler mission(s) so far.

In April 2009 the space telescope made its "first light" images. It had been successfully launched and initial adjustments made. The "first light" images were the beginning of the observations that would make up Kepler's three and a half year mission. That was six years ago. As of May 12, 2015 there are 1024 confirmed exoplanet discoveries from Kepler.