Kepler mission discovers 1,284 new planets

                In the largest finding of planets to date, Nasa has announced the discovery of 1,284 new planets outside our solar system, more than doubling the number of exoplanets found by the Kepler space telescope. Nine of the newly found planets may be potentially habitable, Nasa said. This give us hope that somewhere out there, around a star much like ours, we can eventually discover another Earth. Analysis was performed on the Kepler space telescope’s July 2015 planet candidate catalogue, which identified 4,302 potential planets. For 1,284 of the candidates, the probability of being a planet is greater than 99% - the minimum required to earn the status “planet”.