Space & Astronomy
NASA discovers 10 near-Earth size exoplanets
By
T.K. RandallJune 19, 2017 ·
16 comments
Could one of these new worlds be home to alien life ? Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Scientists believe that these new worlds lie in the 'Goldilocks zone' of their respective solar systems.
Discovered with the help of the Kepler Space Telescope, the new planetary haul consists of 219 candidate worlds in total with ten of these being potentially very similar to our own planet.
"There are now 4,034 planet candidates identified by Kepler. Of which, 2,335 have been verified as exoplanets," NASA wrote in a statement. "Of roughly 50 near-Earth size habitable zone candidates detected by Kepler, more than 30 have been verified."
"Additionally, results using Kepler data suggest two distinct size groupings of small planets. Both results have significant implications for the search for life."
The findings were revealed today at a news conference at NASA's Ames Research Center.
"The Kepler data set is unique, as it is the only one containing a population of these near Earth-analogs - planets with roughly the same size and orbit as Earth," said scientist Mario Perez.
"Understanding their frequency in the galaxy will help inform the design of future NASA missions to directly image another Earth."
Source:
Independent |
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