NASA announced on Wednesday that its Kepler telescope mission had discovered the existence of 715 new exoplanets.
The planets revolve around 305 different stars, meaning that most of the planets reside in multiple-planet systems, according to NASA. Nearly all of the planets discovered are smaller than Neptune. These planets are still much larger than the Earth, as Neptune is four times the size it.
"The Kepler team continues to amaze and excite us with their planet hunting skills," NASA's Science Mission Directorate associated administrator John Grunsfeld said. "That these new planets and solar systems look somewhat like our own, portends a great future when we have the James Webb Space Telescope in space to characterize new worlds."
BBC News reports that four of the newly discovered planets lie in the "habitable zone" in their orbits around their stars and are only 2.5 times larger than the Earth.
The "habitable zone" is the distance from a star that a planet could theoretically contain water in its liquid state.
The first exoplanet was discovered about 20 years ago and since then about 1,000 new planets have been charted.
Douglas Hudgins of NASA's astrophysics division explained it is exciting to find that many planets that reside in multiple-planet systems, meaning solar systems much like our own aren't exceedingly rare.
image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
