NASA discovers 1,284 new planets with 9 potentially capable of harboring life

NASA's Kepler mission has announced the discovery of over 1,200 new planets – the single largest finding of planets to date. The discovery more than doubles the number of confirmed planets from Kepler, giving scientists hope that they may eventually discover another Earth-like planet that could harbor life. Of the 1,284 discovered, nearly 550 could be rocky planets like Earth, based on their size, according to NASA. Nine of these orbit in their sun's habitable "Goldilocks" zone, which is the distance from a star where orbiting planets can have surface temperatures that allow liquid water to pool. With the addition of these nine, 21 exoplanets now are known to be members of this exclusive group.
Launched in March 2009, Kepler is the first NASA mission to find potentially habitable Earth-size planets. For four years, the Kepler space telescope monitored 150,000 stars in a single patch of sky, measuring the tiny, telltale dip in the brightness of a star that can be produced by a transiting planet. However, there's a huge difference between finding a planet that looks a bit like Earth and discovering life. Current telescopes simply aren't powerful enough to scrutinise these planets closely enough to detect the presence of liquid water or oxygen produced by photosynthesis.