NASA's Kepler Telescope Discovered New Earths; Distance, Size, Liquid Water ...

NASA and its Kepler space mission have just updated its findings. New Earth-size planets have been discovered, which could potentially support life.

Experts at NASA are at constant update as they try to classify and map out planets outside our solar system. With the help of Kepler space telescope, the planetary family tree is conveniently widened and updated.

"We like to think of this study as classifying planets in the same way that biologists identify new species of animals. Finding two distinct groups of exoplanets is like discovering mammals and lizards make up distinct branches of a family tree," Exoplanet quoted doctoral candidate at the University of Hawaii in Mano, Benjamin Fulton, as saying.

A testament to the said updated information, NASA just recently announced that there are 219 new planetary candidates, 10 of which are Earth-size. Apart from having a size similar to our planet Earth, these new planets are at right distance from their host star and they also hold liquid water essential for life to thrive. Therefore, making these newly discovered planets as potential new Earth.

In retrospect, the Kepler space telescope has been traversing space and gathering data of other planets and stars since 2009. Since then, various data have been sent to Earth that experts carefully analyzed, paving the way for planetary catalog and statistical conclusions.

"All the data from the original Kepler mission has been analyzed, much of it several times. This latest catalog is a reanalysis using improved software that has been well characterized, which makes the catalog particularly good for drawing statistical conclusions. This represents the final planet search results that
the mission will deliver," Kepler and K2 mission manager Charlie Sobeck told PopSci in an email.

However, the mission of Kepler is not over yet. After suffering a major setback in 2013, when an important part of the ship was damaged, the Kepler space telescope continued. That is why it is to be expected that NASA and its Kepler mission will continue to report potential new Earth suitable for human life.
Watch here below other notable space missions: