This discovery has increased the total number of Earth-sized exoplanets that may be habitable to about 50 planets.
This discovery has increased the number of exoplanets that may support life to 50 planets.
An international team of scientists has found an additional 20 exoplanets that could sustain human life. If confirmed, this will raise the number of known exoplanets outside our Solar System that are believed to have the potential to support life, bringing the total number of Earth-sized exoplanets that may be habitable to around 50.
The Kepler Space Telescope was launched in 2009 with the specific mission of searching for exoplanets. Scientists have used its data to confirm thousands of planets among them. However, Kepler was damaged in 2013, but the area of space it monitored during its four years of operation includes over 150,000 stars, so there is still a lot of data to review and study.
The scientists compiled a list of 4,034 exoplanets with orbital periods ranging from 6 hours to 632 days. From this list, the research team selected 20 candidates that are most likely to have the necessary characteristics to support life and announced their findings to the world.
According to Jeff Coughlin, the head of the Kepler team and co-author of the paper, one of the most intriguing new planets among these discoveries is KOI-7923.01. Coughlin stated: “If you had to choose a place to send a spacecraft, this wouldn’t be a bad choice. This planet is about 97% the size of Earth, has an orbital period of 395 days, and it is likely covered by a cold tundra—though not so cold that it couldn’t support life.”
However, Coughlin and his team are confident that 70-80% of their assessments are reliable, but the scientific team emphasizes that further research is needed before any space exploration missions are undertaken.
