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Three new Earth-size planets found

Sunday, 18 January 2015 7:30 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 18 January 2015 7:30 PM ]

NASA's Kepler space telescope

NASA’s Kepler space telescope has discovered three almost Earth-sized planets, including one in a habitable zone, a researcher says.

The three planets were discovered orbiting the star EPIC 201367075, which is 150 light years away from the Earth, said graduate student and researcher, Erik Petigura, from the University of California Berkeley.

“Most planets we have found to date are scorched. This system is the closest star with lukewarm transiting planets,” added Petigura, who discovered the planets while analyzing data from Kepler.

He said the smallest and outermost planet from the star may be rocky like the Earth and could have the right temperature to support liquid water oceans.

The planet also orbits the star at a distance that would give it levels of light comparable to those received on Earth from the Sun.

The three planets are between 1.5 and 2.1 times the size of the Earth.

The Kepler telescope, launched in March 2009, is searching the Milky Way galaxy for Earth-like planets in the so-called habitable zone that is not too close and not too far away from the stars they orbit.

Astronomers have spotted more than 1,000 exoplanets – planets outside our own solar system – so far, most of which are giant. As they are located very far away, only the biggest are detectable.

As there is no telescope to be able to directly visualize a planet orbiting another star, scientists use indirect methods to find exoplanets.

Kepler, for instance, measures the light coming from a star. The planet passing in front of the star dims this light as it orbits. Scientists then use this information to compute the planet’s size and the speed at which it orbits.

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