NASA’s Kepler space telescope has spotted 219 new potential planets, of which at least 10 are near-Earth size with conditions suitable to host life.
The new data is the most comprehensive and detailed catalogue release of candidate exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system, from Kepler’s first four years of data.
Programme scientist in the Astrophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Mario Perez, said in Washington that the Kepler data set is unique, as it is the only one containing a population of these near Earth-analogues – planets with roughly the same size and orbit as Earth.
He said, understanding their frequency in the galaxy will help inform the design of future NASA missions to directly image another Earth.
