Deutsche
Welle, 27 February 2014
An
additional 715 planets outside our solar system have been identified by
astronomers using data from the Kepler space telescope. NASA says that boosts
the overall tally to nearly 1,700. A few are potentially habitable.
The US
space agency NASA announced late Wednesday that scientists using a new
verification technique on data from the Kepler telescope had discovered 715
additional planets.
The new
finds "almost certainly doubled" the number of planets known to
humanity, said NASA planetary scientists during a news conference.
The
additions include four exo-planets – those outside our solar system – at the
right distance from their parent stars for surface water to stay liquid. The
"habitable zone" is neither too hot nor too cold for life, which is
dependent on water, to potentially exist.
More data
to examine
The
telescope, launched in 2009 but now disabled, spent four productive years
staring at 160,000 stars. So far, two years of its data have been analyzed by
scientists.
The 715
planets located were orbiting in clusters around stars, much like the Earth and
its sister planets which orbit our sun.
'Small
planets, extremely common'
Astronomer
Sara Seagar of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was not part of
the discovery team, said Kepler's data also indicated that "small planets
are extremely common in our galaxy.
"That's
why we have confidence that there will be planets like Earth in other
places," Seagar said.
Twenty
years ago, astronomers had only identified planets revolving around the sun.
ipj/ccp (AP, Reuters)
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