NASA announced the discovery of ten new exoplanets that could be habitable

In 1995 we discovered Bellerophon, the first extrasolar planet. 22 years later, we have located more than 4000 exoplanets thanks to the Kepler space telescope. Now NASA has announced the discovery of 219 other candidates, of which 10 are potentially habitable.

The finding was presented Monday at the Ames Research Center of NASA in California. Although there is no direct confirmation, astronomers have managed to identify 219 candidates, 10 of them rocky planets similar to Earth in size and orbit in the habitable zone of their stars. With this discovery, our catalog of exoplanets has reached a total of 4034 candidates located in the Kepler space telescope.

Researchers have used all these data to analyze in detail the size of the known exoplanets. They found that there is a clear division between two types of planets with rocky Earth-like dimensions and gas that are smaller than Neptune. For some reason, there are very few planets between these two groups.

In order to locate exoplanets, Kepler measures the brightness of a star like the electrocardiogram when a body passes in front of it, measurements of the ship produce a small pulse that astrophysicists analyzed to verify the existence and size planet, besides knowing its orbit. The next generation of space telescopes such as the James Webb telescope, will allow astronomers to analyze further these worlds and look for extraterrestrial life. [NASA]

agradecimientos a:
Matías S. Zavia