Kepler space telescope ready for service

PASADENA, Calif., April 16 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says its Kepler space telescope has obtained "first light" images of the sky where it will soon start looking for Earth-like planets.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists said the images show the 3 1/2-year mission's target patch of sky -- a vast starry field in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the Milky Way galaxy.

NASA said one Kepler image shows a 100-square-degree portion of the sky that contains an estimated 14 millions stars -- more than 100,000 of which were selected as ideal candidates for planet hunting.

The Kepler mission is the first with the ability to find planets similar to the Earth -- small, rocky planets orbiting sun-like stars in areas where temperatures are right for possible lakes and oceans of water to exist.

"Everything about Kepler has been optimized to find Earth-size planets," said James Fanson, Kepler's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Our images are road maps that will allow us, in a few years, to point to a star and say a world like ours is there."

Scientists and engineers will spend the next few weeks calibrating Kepler's instruments. Once those steps are complete, the planet hunt will begin.