NASA ’s Kepler scope is unremarkably used to seek for planets beyond the Solar System . But by studying one closer to rest home , Neptune , it may help us find which of those more distant macrocosm could be habitable .

The event took placea while ago , from November 2014 to January 2015 , but was recently highlighted by NASA in aweb postby its Scientific Visualization Studio . There does n’t seem to be anything specially new , although it ’s nerveless to look at once again .

During this period , Kepler monitored the daily rotation of Neptune , the trend of its cloud , and the motion of two of its moons . The goal was to practise how we might perform similar techniques on distant exoplanets , and discover their own weather condition systems and local environments .

“ The Kepler notice are unique   because they allow us to see the light curve of an object close-fitting enough to image and conclude swarm feature article , ” said Amy Simon , a planetary scientist at NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center involved in the project , in theweb post . “ These observations prove that rapid variation in light curves of brown dwarfs and exoplanets can be triggered by changing clouds . ”

Simon was also conduct writer on a paper inThe Astronomical Journalthat described the finding in 2016 .

Kepler , of course , is more famous for finding exoplanets . Since it was launch in 2009 , it has found thousands of worlds beyond our Solar System . At the moment it ’s in the K2 phase of its mission , look at a much large area than it was before . It began this phase angle in November 2013 , and has found one C of potential planet since .

find weather and other systems on exoplanets is a primal technique that we need to get over . To function out if aloof world are habitable , we ’ll need to be able-bodied to find out what ’s pass in their atmosphere . Not only will we want to get it on what the atmosphere are made of , but also what force they have on the planet .

We ’ve done a few weather and atmosphere studiesso far , but future telescope like the variousExtremely Large Telescopes(ELTs ) being build will give us a much greater insight . And Kepler may have help oneself them get a minute of a top dog get down when they do get up and running .