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NASA's Kepler mission, which has been searching the skies for Earth-like planets since 2009, has confirmed the discovery of a whopping 715 new planets orbiting around 305 stars. That bring the count of exoplanets, which exist outside of our solar system, up to nearly 1,700. This galaxy's getting crowded.

Most of the planets are smaller than Neptune (which is four times the size of the Earth), but four of them are less than 2.5 times the size of our planet and the right distance from the Sun to possibly support liquid water. The research team behind the findings has not yet determined whether the planets are gaseous or water worlds.

NASA's Science Mission Directorate associate administrator John Grunsfeld lauded the discovery, saying "the Kepler team continues to amaze and excite us with their planet hunting results. That these new planets and solar systems look somewhat like our own, portends a great future when we have the James Webb Space Telescope in space to characterize the new worlds."

The James Webb Space Telescope is slated to take the Hubble telescope's place in 2018, and will be used to help scientists search for the universe's first galaxies, as well as check out nascent planetary systems.