What is the primary focus of the Kepler program?

The primary focus of the Kepler program is finding exoplanets, which are planets located outside our solar system. Launched by NASA in 2009, the Kepler Space Telescope was specifically designed to detect Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of their stars, where conditions may be right for liquid water and potentially life.

The telescope employed the transit method to identify exoplanets, monitoring the brightness of stars and detecting minute dips in brightness that occur when a planet passes in front of a star. This method enabled the identification of thousands of potential exoplanets, significantly enhancing our understanding of planetary systems and the potential for life beyond Earth.

Although discovering asteroids, studying black holes, and analyzing cosmic radiation are important areas of astronomical research, they were not the primary goals of the Kepler program. Instead, the program played a crucial role in exoplanet research, paving the way for further studies and missions focused on understanding these distant worlds.