The Delta II rocket carrying the Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft lifted off on time at 10:49 p.m. EST from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Friday night. The spectacular nighttime launch was free of technical issues or weather delays.

Kepler is specifically designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover Earth-size and smaller planets in the habitable zone of a solar system. From this data, scientist can determine the fraction of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy that might have such planets. It finds these planets by detecting slight dips in the brightness of their star as it passes between the Kepler spacecraft and the star.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/kepler