Since May 12th, Kepler has been focused on a patch of sky in the direction of the Cancer constellation, an area it also observed back in 2015. This latest data collection will help researchers confirm any exoplanet candidates noted during the first observation of this region and could help them spot some new ones.

In early August, Kepler will be awakened, its antenna will be pointed back towards Earth and its data will be downloaded. If all goes well, its next observation campaign will kick off on August 6th and it will record new data until it's tapped of fuel.

This is not "the end of Kepler" by any means. We have an incredible data set that will continue to yield discoveries for a long time. Over the past year alone, we added data for ~150,000 new targets to the archive. Plus we expect to start Campaign 19! (4/5) pic.twitter.com/vcF0nBTrsg — Geert Barentsen (@GeertHub) July 6, 2018

Launched in 2009, Kepler has continued to collect data for far longer than the three-year lifespan it was expected to have, and it has found a whopping 2,650 confirmed planets, so far. Even if Kepler's mission ends soon, there are still piles of data to be analyzed. NASA says it will continue to support and fund the analysis of that data, which it predicts could result in over 1,000 scientific publications over the coming years.