NASA's planet-hunting telescope, Kepler, rocketed into space Friday night on a historic voyage to track down other Earths in a faraway patch of the Milky Way galaxy. It's the first mission capable of answering the age-old question: Are other worlds like ours out there? Kepler, named after the German 17th century astrophysicist, set off on its unprecedented mission at 10:49 p.m. (15:49 GMT), thundering into a clear sky embellished by a waxing moon. «It was just magnificent. It looked like a star was being formed in the sky,» said Bill Borucki, Kepler's principal scientist. «Everybody was delighted, everybody was screaming, 'Go Kepler!»' Kepler's mission will last at least 3½ years and cost $600 million, Associated Press reported. The goal is to find, if they exist, Earth-like planets circling stars in the so-called habitable zone _ orbits where liquid water could be present on the surface of the planets. That would mean there are lots of places out there for life to evolve, Borucki said.
