In November, engineers transmitted the Goodnight Sequence to power down the Kepler spacecraft thereby initiating mission closeout. The end of Kepler is the end of an exciting chapter in exoplanet exploration. We'll pay homage to the mission by playing back some of its science highlights. We'll also consider Kepler's exoplanet legacy -- what it leaves behind and what role it will play in the chapters being written now by TESS and in the near future by JWST.

About the speaker:

Natalie Batalha is an astrophysicist working to detect and characterize planets orbiting other stars with the ultimate goal of finding evidence of life beyond the solar system. She served as the science lead for NASA's Kepler Mission from 2011 to 2017. She contributed directly to many aspects of the mission development and data analysis, including the identification of reliable planet candidates and the confirmation of objects like Kepler-10b -- the mission's first rocky planet discovery. For her work on Kepler, Batalha was awarded a NASA Public Service Medal (2011) and the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award (2017). In 2017, she was named one of the 100 Most Influential People of the World by TIME Magazine. After an 18-year career in the Space Sciences division of NASA Ames Research Center, Dr. Batalha joined the faculty of the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.