 A ‘mother lode’ of ‘new worlds’ has been discovered outside the solar system, with Nasa confirming the existence of 715 new planets. The US space agency doubled the number of planets known to humanity in just one day after the discovery ‘bonanza’. Nasa called the new finds a major step toward the planet-hunting Kepler telescope’s ultimate goal of ‘finding Earth 2.0′. ‘The Kepler team continues to amaze and excite us with their planet hunting results,’ explained Nasa veteran John Grunsfeld. ‘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 characterise the new worlds.’  The confirmation of new planets, pushing the total number discovered in the galaxy to about 1,700, ‘increased the possibility of life elsewhere’, said astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger. Nasa used a new confirmation technique to come up with the largest single announcement of a batch of exoplanets – what planets outside our solar system are called. Four of those new exoplanets orbit their stars in ‘habitable zones’ where it is not too hot or not too cold for liquid water which is crucial for life to exist. However, the planets are all at least twice as big as Earth, making them more likely to be gas planets instead of rocky ones like Earth – and less likely to support life. Metro
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