NASA is going to reveal new planets discovered by the Kepler space telescope today in a press conference. You can monitor NASA TV for the conference. Kepler has been in orbit since 2009 and is designed to hunt planets in distance solar systems. NASA recently revealed a planet that exists in a habitable zone of a star 600 light years away, called Kepler-22b.
Artist Rendering of Kepler-22b
The overall number of known worlds discovered to date, beyond our own solar system are in the 700+ range, both via Kepler and other observation methods.
Check back to this post for updates later.
UPDATED:
NASA announced the detection of the first Earth sized planets outside our solar system today in the press conference. Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, both too close to their host star to be in the habitable zone, however. These are the smallest exoplanets found around a star like our own. Read more details on NASA's news article here.
Image credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech
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