Washington sources reported that NASA’s Kepler space telescope that discovered thousands of planets outside our solar system and revealed that our galaxy contains more planets than stars, has received its final set of commands to disconnect communications with Earth. Meanwhile the “goodnight” commands finalize the spacecraft’s transition into retirement, which began on October 30 with NASA’s announcement that Kepler had run out of fuel and could no longer conduct science.

Furthermore Kepler’s “goodnight” falls on the same date as the 388 year anniversary of the death of its namesake, German astronomer Johannes Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion and passed away on November 15, 1630. Reportedly the Kepler space telescope has had a profound impact on our understanding of the number of worlds that exist beyond our solar system.

NASA said “Through its survey, we have discovered there are more planets than stars in our galaxy. As a farewell to the spacecraft, we asked some of people closest to Kepler to reflect on what Kepler has meant to them and its finding of a more planets than stars”. Moreover the spacecraft was drifting in a safe orbit around the Sun, 94 million miles away from Earth. Accordingly the Kepler telescope combined cutting edge techniques in measuring stellar brightness with the largest digital camera outfitted for outer space observations at that time.