17 new planets, including Earth-sized world discovered
Researchers have discovered 17 new planets, including a potentially habitable Earth-sized world, by combing through data gathered by NASA”s Kepler mission.
Over its original four-year mission, the Kepler satellite looked for planets, especially those that lie in the “Habitable Zones” of their stars, where liquid water could exist on a rocky planet”s surface, the study said.
The findings, published in The Astronomical Journal, include one such particularly rare planet.
Officially named KIC-7340288 b, the planet discovered by Kunimoto is just 1 and half times the size of Earth – small enough to be considered rocky, instead of gaseous like the giant planets of the Solar System – and in the habitable zone of its star.
