SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) – A University of Notre Dame physics professor has been honored by NASA for his efforts to find planets outside our solar system.
 
The South Bend Tribune reports Justin Crepp is looking for planets that may be habitable. The NASA honors come with grant money that is helping him head a project to design an instrument that can be attached to high-powered telescopes and used to find and categorize exoplanets.
 
The instrument is called the iLocater and will first be used at Notre Dame and eventually at an observatory in Arizona.
 
Crepp says the instrument will be able to work with the large telescopes to detect planets down to the size of the Earth and will help determine if their atmospheric conditions could sustain life.