Kepler telescope to soon begin operating

PASADENA, Calif., April 8 (UPI) -- U.S. space agency engineers say they have ejected the dust cover from the Kepler space telescope, which is designed to search for worlds similar to Earth.

"The cover released and flew away exactly as we designed it to do," said Kepler Project Manager James Fanson of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "This is a critical step toward answering a question that has come down to us across 100 generations of human history -- are there other planets like Earth or are we alone in the galaxy?"

The space telescope was launched March 6 from Cape Canaveral, Fla. It will spend 3 1/2 years searching more than 100,000 stars in the Milky Way galaxy for signs of Earth-size planets. Some of the planets are expected to orbit in a star's "habitable zone" -- a warm region where water could pool on a planet's surface.

Kepler's oval-shaped dust cover, measuring 67 inches by 52 inches, protected the instrument from contamination before and after launch.

NASA said the space telescope will undergo calibration for several weeks, after which science observations will begin.