a permanently shadowed crater near the lunar south pole on October 9, 2009; analysis of the debris plume confirmed the presence of water ice.

The ''Kepler'' space telescope launched on March 7, 2009, and was NASA's first mission capable of finding Earth-size planets around other stars. It monitored the brightness of more than 150,000 stars simultaneously, detecting planets by the slight dimming caused as they transited their host stars. Kepler confirmed more than 2,600 exoplanets