It is named after the German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630).
They are named such because they were discovered using the Kepler space telescope, which was named in Kepler's honor for his contributions to planetary science.
Johannes Kepler did not invent the telescope. The Invention of the telescope is credited to three people Hans Lippershey, and Jacob Metius. The first records appear in 1608, more than 60 years before Kepler was born. The Kepler telescope was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies and launched by NASA in 2009. This telescope was not invented by Johannes Kepler but was merely named in his honor.
No, Johannes Kepler is best known for describing the laws that dictate how orbits work. The Kepler planets were discovered by the Kepler telescope, a spacecraft named in his honor.
The new planets are named after the Kepler Space Telescope, which was a NASA mission that searched for exoplanets using the transit method. The telescope discovered thousands of exoplanets during its mission.
Johannes Kepler did not invent the telescope. The first telescopes were developed in the Netherlands and are credited to three individuals: Hans Lippershey and Zacharias Janssen, who were spectacle makers in Middelburg, and Jacob Metius of Alkmaar. Galileo developed improvements on those early refracting telescope designs and Kepler developed improvements on Galileo's design.
NASA's space telescope "kepler"
The NASA Kepler Space Telescope was designed and built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. It launched in 2009 with the goal of searching for Earth-sized planets in or near the habitable zone of other stars. It was named after the renowned astronomer Johannes Kepler.
The Kepler space telescope was launched by NASA in 2009 to search for exoplanets. The telescope discovered thousands of new planets during its mission, which ended in 2018. The discoveries made by the Kepler mission were a collaborative effort involving many scientists and researchers.
Neither Johannes Kepler nor the Kepler Space Telescope discovered Pluto. Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, long after Johannes Kepler died and long before the Kepler telescope was created. The Kepler telescope was built to discover planets in other solar systems, not our own.
There is no single planet named Kepler, rather it is part of the designation given to planets discovered using the Kepler telescope. Most of the planets discovered using the telescope are larger than Earth, but some are smaller.
Kepler telescope in Hawaii
Kepler telescope