NASA finds over 100 new planets in space, some are like Earth

New Delhi : NASA has discovers over 100 new planets beyond our solar system with many like our Earth. The new findings have brought the total number of exoplanets found using NASA’s K2 mission to almost 300.

“We started out analysing 275 candidates, of which 149 were validated as real exoplanets. In turn, 95 of these planets have proved to be new discoveries,” said Andrew Mayo, doctoral student at the Technical University of Denmark.

“This research has been underway since the first K2 data release in 2014,” said Mayo

The findings from the new discovery by NASA scientists have been published in the Astronomical Journal. 

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The scientists checked hundreds of signals to understand which are created by the exoplanets and which were caused by other resources in the space.

“We found that some of the signals were caused by multiple star systems or noise from the spacecraft. But we also detected planets that range from sub Earth-sized to the size of Jupiter and larger,” said Mayo.

NASA’s Kepler mission was launched in 2009 to detect exoplanets and it was crippled in 2013 due to some mechanical failure. The scientists, however, discovered a new way to utilise it by changing its field of view periodically.