Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Over a thousand planets discovered by the Kepler Mission


Big fan of space? Well, you may not going to believe this because the Kepler Mission from NASA verified that it discovered a record-breaking 1,284 new planets, making it the single largest finding of planets to date.

The analysis was done on the Kepler telescope's July 2015 planet candidate catalog, which identified 4,302 potential planets. For 1,284 of the candidates, the probability of being a planet is over 99%, which is a minimum required to earn its planetary status. Although the additional 1,327 candidates are more likely to be classified as a planet, they never meet the 99% criteria and will require additional study. The remaining 707 are more likely to be some other astrophysical phenomena.

NASA astronomers state that out of the 1,284 new planets outside the solar system, nine of them may be able to support life like that on Earth.

With this discovery, the number of confirmed exoplanets is now over 3,200. 21 of them are believed to be Earth-like.

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