Eight New Earth-like Exoplanets in Goldilocks Zone Discovered by NASA's Kepler Spacecraft

Eight alien planets located in the 'Goldilocks zone' were discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope. These alien exoplanets orbit their stars at just the right distance to have liquid water, and possibly life.

Two of these newfound weird alien planets, dubbed as Kepler-438b and Kepler-442b are being called the most Earth-like exoplanets ever discovered. Both alien planets orbit red dwarf stars, which are slightly cooler and smaller than our sun.

"We don't know for sure whether any of the planets in our sample are truly habitable," Dr. David Kipping, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and one of the scientists involved in the discovery, said in a written statement. "All we can say is that they're promising candidates."

These exoplanets are just the latest discovery in a long series of planets found by Kepler. The planet-hunting spacecraft has found 1,004 confirmed planets along with 4,175 planet candidates since it launch in 2009.

Kepler-438b, located 70 light-years from Earth, orbits its star every 35 days. Its diameter is 12 percent bigger than Earth, CfA astronomers said. It's estimated to have a 70 percent rock and believed that it gets 40 percent more light than Earth.

While Kepler-442b is located 1,100 light-years away from Earth. It's one-third larger than Earth and has 112 days/year. Astronomers say that it gets two-thirds more light than Earth and has a 60 percent chance of being rocky. Its chance of being in the habitable zone is 97 percent.

"Each result from the planet-hunting Kepler mission's treasure trove of data takes us another step closer to answering the question of whether we are alone in the universe," John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, said in a written statement issued by NASA.

The findings were announced Jan. 6 in Seattle at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. A paper describing the discoveries has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

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