NASA Confirms 8 New Worlds

NASA's venerable planet-hunter, the Kepler spacecraft, has shaken its one-thousandth planet from the sky. Eight new worlds beyond our solar system, announced Tuesday, boost the number of Kepler's confirmed planets to 1,004, including two of the most Earthlike planets discovered so far. Kepler's eight newly confirmed planets are all relatively small, and they all orbit stars that are smaller and cooler than the sun. Depending which calculations scientists use, at least three of the planets—and perhaps all eight—are in the habitable zones of their parent stars. This is the region where temperatures are just right for supporting liquid water on the planet's surface. At least two of those planets, Kepler 438-b and Kepler 442-b, are likely to be rocky, like Earth.