Astronomers have discovered a boniface of habitable planets hiding in data from the Kepler place telescope , which may include some of the skilful candidate for find life story outside the Solar System .
The data comes from Kepler ’s first rill of observations , from 2009 to 2013 , when the telescope was pointed at one region of the sky .
lead by Susan Thompson from the SETI Institute in California , the team found 20 bright candidates for Earth - like worlds , orbiting Sun - alike stars on interchangeable orbits to our own . A pre - print of their findings is available onarXiv .
One in particular , KOI-7923.01 , looks particularly hopeful . It is 97 percent the size of it of Earth , and orb its star in 395 days . It ’s somewhat further from its star than Earth is from the Sun , which means it is probably a bit colder than our major planet , with tundra - like conditions .
“ If you had to choose one to send a spacecraft to , it ’s not a bad option , ” Jeff Coughlin from NASA ’s Ames Research Center , a co - generator on the newspaper , toldNew Scientist .
To corroborate an exoplanet , Kepler needs to discover three pickpocket in a star ’s lighter as a satellite passes in front of it , known as a transit .
For this reason , many of the planets Kepler has plant so far are mostly on short orbits , some last just several Earth 24-hour interval , as these are easier to confirm .
But for true world - same planet , those around Sun - like genius , habitable worlds are likely to have a like orbit to our own . That is , one lasting about an Earth yr .
These longer orbits mean Kepler was only able-bodied to spot the dips in light once or twice in its initial run . After one of the scope ’s reaction wheel broke in 2013 , it was pointed towards other targets as part of itsK2 commission .
In that first batch of data , however , there are a telephone number of candidate exoplanets that bet like fairly good stakes for habitableness . Kepler is unable to corroborate that these planets really be , but watch - up observance from scope like Hubble could bear witness that they do .
For these young worlds , there is a 20 to 30 percent probability that some of them will turn out to be blips in data , rather than rightful planet . Nevertheless , this makes them prime candidate for further work .
While we ’ve discovered a number of interesting planets around red dwarfs , we simply do n’t do it if such worlds can hold liveliness . However , we know of one place that does bear life , Earth , and that orb the Sun . retrieve others with similar characteristics will be key .
