More than 1,200 new planets discovered through Nasa's Kepler space telescope
Source: The Guardian
More than doubling the number of confirmed planets orbiting alien stars, astronomers said that the discovery is a step toward finding Earth-like planets
Nasa added more than 1,200 new planets to the known galaxy on Tuesday, more than doubling the number of confirmed planets orbiting alien stars.
Revealing data from the Kepler space telescope, the astronomers said that the discovery is a step toward finding Earth-like planets. “This gives us hope that somewhere out there, around a star much like ours, we can eventually discover another Earth,” said Ellen Stofan, Nasa’s chief scientist.
Analysis on data from Kepler found that 1,284 candidates have a 99% chance of being a planet, of 4,302 potential planets detected by the telescope. Kepler searches in particular for planets in the “habitable zone” – close enough to a star for water to pool on the surface of a planet. Not so close that the star scorches water out of existence, as on Mercury, and not so far that water only persists as ice, as on Pluto.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/may/10/new-planets-discovered-nasa-kepler-space-telescope
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