NASA

"Today, we're announcing the discovery of 1,284 new planets in the Kepler mission," said Tim Morton, an associate research scholar at Princeton University's Department of Astrophysical Sciences, in a NASA press conference held this afternoon. "This is the most exoplanets that has ever been announced at one time."

Nine are in the "Goldilocks Zone" around their parent stars, meaning liquid water could exist

This number represents validated planets observed by the Kepler space telescope, and it more than doubles the number of confirmed planets discovered by Kepler. The total number of confirmed planets discovered by any telescope is now over 3,200. A planet is considered confirmed or validated if mission scientists calculate at least 99 percent certainty that the object is actually a planet and not an "impostor." A paper detailing the newly discovered planets was published today in the Astrophysical Journal.

NASA

NASA announced that more than 550 of the newly discovered planets are thought to be rocky, given their size. Of those, nine are in the "Goldilocks Zone" around their parent stars, meaning liquid water could exist and therefore we assume the planets could potentially be habitable.

When asked how many potentially habitable planets are in the galaxy, Natalie Batalha, a Kepler mission scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, said a conservative estimate was "tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-like planets out in the galaxy."

NASA

Kepler discovers exoplanets by detecting decreases in the brightness of stars as planets pass in front of them, a reading known as the transit signal. False transit signals can occur due to other stars in the region affecting the readings and imperfections in Kepler's imaging, which is why it takes some time to confirm these findings.

The Kepler mission was able to discover such a large number of verified planets all at once thanks to new software running on the space observatory that allows the telescope to scrutinize many different planets at once. Previously, each planet candidate had to be individually observed, often with telescopes on the ground, to calculate the likelihood that the object is actually a planet and not some other type of debris or a false reading.

A conservative estimate was "tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-like planets out in the galaxy."

Kepler still has more than 2,000 candidates to analyze, about 1,300 of which are classified as "more likely planet." And ESO's TRAPPIST telescope recently discovered three nearby Earth-like exoplanets that it called the best targets in the search for life outside Earth. By using telescopes to measure the atmospheric composition of known exoplanets, we can determine if life is impacting the balance of certain elements in the atmosphere.

When and where we will find it is anyone's guess, but the resources devoted to looking have never been higher.

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