Researchers discovered 17 new planets, including potentially habitable Earth-sized world

TORONTO: 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. (IANS)

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