NASA through this space telescope was able to discover ten new planets which can potentially support life and have liquid water. These planets were found outside the solar system and these are considered "rocky" and their size is like the Earth.
It was claimed in the latest report that NASA released a survey of 219 exoplanets which were detected by the Kepler space telescope. With its four years in space, it was also discovered that ten of these planets were orbiting their suns which have distance like that of the Earth's orbit around the sun.
Apart from orbiting around their suns, ABC News claimed that these 10 new planets also have a habitable zone. This means that temperature on those planets can support life and liquid water. However, it doesn't necessarily mean that these newly-discovered planets have life, only that all the things that can support life are present.
The discovery of the 10 new planets also paved the way to the notion that humans are not the only ones in the universe. Although this is needed to be confirmed still, Kepler scientist Mario Perez shared that this serves as a boost in the hope of life somewhere outside the Earth.
However, an astronomer from Harvard claimed that these planets which orbit around their suns are not new anymore and are not even rare. This means that perhaps, apart from these planets, there could be even more of those kinds elsewhere.
Kepler, NASA's space telescope is considered as the first space telescope which has been in space for four years already. Its mission is to find Earth-sized planets which are near the habitable zone. But it was not the only way the astronomers have discovered exoplanets and even those that can support life.
Prior to the launching of Kepler, the astronomers and scientists already expressed their hopes that the number of the Earth-like planets will be about a percent of the stars. In the latest report, the frequency was already close to 60 percent as confirmed by an astronomer during the Kepler conference in California.
With this latest discovery of the ten new planets, the astronomers shared their joy even if this number was regarded as very small. This can pave the way to the discovery of more exoplanets that can possibly support life.
