eeling sorry at all," Borucki said. "I'm feeling delighted — and happy — with what we've done."
Scientists who had followed the mission — as well as those who participated in it — were less sanguine Wednesday.
"It's nice that our NASA managers have correctly characterized the enormous success of the Kepler mission and are putting on a happy face," Marcy said. "But I'm very deeply saddened and I think we've lost something precious here."
Caltech planetary astronomer John Johnson expressed disappointment that his group would not be able to study more red dwarf systems, whose habitable zones are close to their cool parent stars and would make ideal candidates to look for Earth-like planets.
"It feels like an opportunity slipped through our hands," he said.
Still, Kepler has made an important contribution to science by showing that there are far more planets around stars than scientists had ever imagined.
"That's way bigger than anybody would have dared to dream," Johnson said.
Even if Kepler isn't able to continue its search, it has already sent back enough data to keep scientists busy for two more years, Borucki said.