Hidden in the Heavens
How the Kepler Mission’s Quest for New Planets Changed How We View Our Own

Jason Steffen provides an inside view of Keppler, NASA's mission to find exoplanets. From the conception of the research that necessitated Keppler, the quest to get funding for a project this expensive, the technical specifications, the scientific basis of the observation methods, to the difficultie......more

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC in audiobook format. Jason Steffen’s Hidden in the Heavens is a fascinating deep dive into the groundbreaking discoveries of the Kepler Mission, narrated with captivating clarity by Perry Daniels. This audiobook offers an insider’s perspective on on......more

This introduction to the relatively short-lasting Kepler space telescope's search for exoplanets from a researcher on the team opens with the now familiar (and, dare I say it, rather dull) image of people standing around celebrating a mission launch. This type of 'they're just people, folks' intro i......more

Steffen begins the book with an introduction on himself and how he got on the Kepler mission which indeed was captivating to read. I saw a future for myself that was possible—limitless. Kepler was built by a coalition of interdisciplinary theorists, observers, and engineers with a goal of finding Ea......more

With all the discoveries that the James Webb telescope has brought in a few months, it is easy to forget how much NASA’s Kepler mission taught us about the universe. When I was a child, the word exoplanets didn’t exist, and other planetary systems were the stuff of science fiction. Kepler changed al......more