Kepler, a telescope that searches life

Kepler scans our Galaxy since 2009

Kepler, the Space Telescope over a ton, went towards the Milky Way, March 6, 2009 at 10:48 p.m., hours of Florida, by a Delta II rocket, the search for extrasolar planets or exoplanets.
The planets that Kepler telescope will search, Exoterra are small in size, 2 to 20 times the size of the Earth, those that the Corot space telescope can see.
In March 2009, scientists announced that they have discovered 342 exoplanets, 289 stars with planets planets and 0 is identical to the size of Earth.
The 342 planets are gas giants for most, but not in the habitable zone. Is to achieve this goal the Americans have launched the Kepler mission, to determine if there are habitable planets outside our solar system.
Kepler will watch carefully for three and a half years, more than 150 000 stars in the Milky Way, rather than in regions of Cygnus and Lyra.
It will detect planets orbiting stars similar to our Sun, rocky like our Earth, and again, positioned in the habitable zone, ie, neither too close nor too far from its star. Kepler telescope embarks on this special one meter in diameter with a field of view of 105 degrees and an image resolution of 95 megapixels.

This monster of Technology NASA sees large, since it is equipped with a photometer to measure the brightness of tens of thousands of stars simultaneously, to increase the chances of discovery by the transit method. A transit occurs each time the planet passes between its star and the observer, at that time, the planet obscures some of the light from the star, producing a detectable periodic dimming.
This signature is used to identify the planet and determine its size and orbit.
"The Kepler mission, for the first time, will allow people in our galaxy to search for planets similar to Earth size or even smaller," said principal investigator William Borucki of the research center of NASA, California. "With its advanced capabilities, Kepler will help us answer one of the oldest questions in human history: Are there other things that we in the Universe?"

Image: The Kepler space telescope, over a ton, went towards the Milky Way, March 6, 2009. Thanks to Kepler, we will learn maybe we are not the only living beings in the universe.

Definition of life

The magnitude of the issue does not simply respond as if there is an answer because the issue concerns both the philosophical as the chemistry of life.
We find that life evolves in time by taking a path defined by an infinite number of parameters, which makes it unpredictable and indefinable.
But there is a biological definition of life:
"an organism is alive when said exchange of matter and energy with its environment by maintaining its autonomy when it replicates and evolves by natural selection."
All living organisms ensure their stability by responding to changes in their environment.
Life has a faculty of adaptation and learning. Is not it rather, life?
But we also see by observing the galaxies, stars and planets, that matter is able to self-organize without being alive.

However, a good definition of life must take into account this concept, ie, the ability of the material to gradually climb the ladder of complexity.
The tenacity of life is it not proof that it is present everywhere in the universe, waiting for favorable conditions to continue its path to complexity?
It is difficult to believe that life exists on Earth, wherever there is liquid water, there is a possibility of life even under the icy crust of planets or satellites of planets.
Life thrives in places where even the sun's energy does not penetrate, we see into the depths of our planet.

Image: We recognize life when we see it!