These results are showing us that not only are Earth-sized planets common, but so are multi-planet systems containing potentially habitable worlds," notes Jason Rowe, a SETI Institute astronomer who co-led the study. "Most of the new planets orbit their host star much closer than Mercury, but a few are beginning to bear a similarity to our own solar system."
On April 17th, the Kepler team announced the discovery of Kepler 186f, the first Earth-sized planet found in the habitable zone of its host star, marking a major milestone in determining the frequency of Earth-like planets in the Milky Way galaxy.
"Uncovering these worlds and showing that habitable worlds could be very common has increased the likelihood that there is life—perhaps abundant life—elsewhere in the cosmos," notes David Black, President and CEO of the SETI Institute.
"We can't continue to look at the original Kepler star field," said Douglas Caldwell, Kepler Instrument Scientist at the SETI Institute, "but spacecraft are built and operated by very smart people, and thanks to the hard work of the entire Kepler team we can now search for planets in a wide variety of environments and conditions, including star forming regions. Doing so will teach us more about how our own planetary system formed and evolved."
"The more we explore the more we find worlds among the stars that remind us of home," Rowe notes.
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