| NASA's Kepler mission has discovered its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in the habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Five of the potential planets are near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of smaller, cooler stars than our sun. Kepler mission discovers more than 1000 new planet candidates Is our Milky Way galaxy home to other planets the size of Earth? Are Earth-sized planets common or rare? NASA scientists seeking answers to those questions recently revealed their discovery. "We went from zero to 68 Earth-sized planet candidates and zero to 54 candidates in the habitable zone - a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Some candidates could even have moons with liquid water," said William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and the Kepler Mission's science principal investigator. "Five of the planetary candidates are both near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their parent stars." Planet candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets. "We have found over twelve hundred candidate planets - that's more than all the people have found so far in history," said Borucki. "Now, these are candidates, but most of them, I'm convinced, will be confirmed as planets in the coming months and years." The findings increase the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler to-date to 1235. Of these, 68 are approximately ... |
