The Earth’s galaxy is looking far more crowded. NASA has confirmed 715 newly discovered planets outside the solar system.
Douglas Hudgins, NASA’s exoplanet exploration program scientist, called Wednesday’s announcement a major step toward the planet-hunting Kepler telescope’s ultimate goal — “finding Earth 2.0.”
Scientists using the Kepler telescope pushed the number of planets discovered in the galaxy to about 1,700. Twenty years ago, astronomers had not found any planets circling stars other than the ones revolving around the sun.
Astronomers used a new confirmation technique to come up with the largest single announcement of a batch of exoplanets what planets outside our solar system are called.
All the new planets are in systems like ours where multiple planets circle a star. The 715 planets came from looking at just 305 stars. They were nearly all in size closer to Earth than gigantic Jupiter.
And four of those new exoplanets orbit their stars in “habitable zones” where it is not too hot or not too cold for liquid water which is crucial for life to exist.
The four new habitable zone planets are all at least twice as big as Earth so that makes them more likely to be gas planets instead of rocky ones like Earth and less likely to harbour life.
So far Kepler has found nine exoplanets in the habitable zone, NASA said. Astronomers expect to find more when they look at all four years of data collected by the now-crippled Kepler; so far they have looked at two years.
Planets in the habitable zone are likely to be farther out from their stars because it is hot close in. And planets farther o
ut take more time orbiting, so Kepler has to wait longer to see it again.
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