NASA Announces Discovery Of 1,284 New Planets
MOUNTAIN VIEW (CBS SF) -- The universe just got more crowded. Scientists from NASA's Kepler mission announced the discovery of 1,284 new planets, the largest single finding ever.
"This announcement more than doubles the number of confirmed planets from Kepler," said chief NASA scientist Ellen Stofan, in a press release. "This gives us hope that somewhere out there, around a star much like ours, we can eventually discover another Earth."
According to NASA, nine of these newfound exoplanets are in their sun's so-called habitable zone. That means their surfaces are cool enough for water, the essential element for life. With the addition of these nine, there are now 21 planets out there that could actually be Earth-like, inhabitable worlds.
"They say not to count our chickens before they're hatched, but that's exactly what these results allow us to do based on probabilities that each egg (candidate) will hatch into a chick (bona fide planet)," said Natalie Batalha, co-author of the paper and the Kepler mission scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. "This work will help Kepler reach its full potential by yielding a deeper understanding of the number of stars that harbor potentially habitable, Earth-size planets -- a number that's needed to design future missions to search for habitable environments and living worlds."
CBSSF.com writer, producer Jan Mabry is also executive producer and host of The Bronze Report. She lives in Northern California. Follow her on Twitter @janmabr.