An artist’s illustration shows Kepler-186f. Discovered in 2014, it was the first Earth-sized exoplanet confirmed to be orbiting in a star’s habitable zone. The bright light given off by host stars usually overshadows the faint light given off by exoplanets, but by drowning out starlight, DARKNESS hopes to image exoplanets that are 100 million times fainter than their host stars.

NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle