Taken on April 8, 2009, these are the first images taken by the planet-hunting mission Kepler. The large image in the center shows a 100 degree square patch of sky containing an estimated 14 million stars. Kepler will observe this region continuously for more than 3 years, searching for signs of transiting planets in a group 100,000 pre-selected stars. The dark lines crisscrossing the image indicate the arrangement of the charged coupled devices (CCD's) in Kepler's powerful camera). The top left image is of a region 1000 times smaller than the full field, which contains the known transiting planet TrES-2. The image on the top right includes star cluster NGC 6791, at a distance of 13,000 lightyears from Earth.

NASA