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NASA Announces Discovery Of More Than 1,200 New Planets

NASA Announces Discovery Of More Than 1,200 New Planets

Are we closer to discovering alien life?

Liam Bond

Liam Bond

Speculation was rife ahead of NASA's press conference today, with some people even thinking that alien life could finally be confirmed.

Unfortunately we don't quite have proof that little green men exist, but we still have some huge news.

NASA has announced at their headquarters in Washington that 1,284 new exoplanets have been discovered that could house alien life.

This is by far the largest number of new planets ever released at one time. In fact, it almost doubles the number of confirmed exoplanets.

Nearly 550 of the exoplanets could be rocky planets like Earth, based on their size. Nine of them are also in the sun's habitable zone, meaning they could have surface temperatures that allow liquid water to pool.

"This gives us hope that somewhere out there, around a star much like ours, we can eventually discover another Earth," said Ellen Stofan, chief scientist at NASA.

These historic discoveries were made by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope, which was launched in 2009.

A NASA spokesman said: "When Kepler was launched in March 2009, scientists did not know how common planets were outside our solar system.

"Thanks to Kepler's treasure trove of discoveries, astronomers now believe there may be at least one planet orbiting every star in the sky."

Our universe just got a whole lot busier.

Words by Liam BondFeatured Image Credit:

Topics: Nasa