As NASA’s Kepler space telescope this week begins scanning the Milky Way for planets that might harbor life, scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) are keeping their fingers crossed and waiting for the data to start flowing.

The information stream is their reward for years of work dedicated to getting the space telescope off the ground and on the job. Kepler, which Astronomy Professor and Co-Investigator Dimitar Sasselov described as a giant space camera, was launched March 6 atop a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Read the Harvard Gazette article.