US SPACE agency reveals it's found the most exoplanets ever announced at one time.
It's the biggest discovery in NASA's history and could mean alien life is out there.
The US space agency has just announced it's found 1,284 exoplanets with nine potentially capable of containing life.
This figure doubles the amount of earth-like planets originally found by NASA.
The discovery was made by the £411 million Kepler telescope, which was launched in March 2009.
The high-tech craft finds other worlds by recording tiny brightness dips caused when a planet crosses a star’s face – like our planet does when it orbits behind the sun.
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."
Last year NASA revealed that it had found a new Earth-sized world that had the potential to contain alien life.
The planet, named Kepler-452b, sits in a habitable zone of a star that's similar to our sun and has perfect temperatures for water and life.
NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan recently said: "Strong indications of life beyond Earth" would likely be obtained within the next decade.
MORE FOLLOWS:
No comments:
Post a Comment