NASA’s Kepler telescope has identified eight new planets that reside in what is called the “Goldilocks Zone”, which is any planet that orbits a star at just the right distance to sustain liquid water, and maybe life.


Two of the newfound planets, dubbed Kepler-438b and Kepler-442b, are being called the most Earth-like exoplanets ever found. Both planets orbit red dwarf stars, which are slightly cooler and smaller than our sun.

Dr. David Kipping, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), wrote: “We don't know for sure whether any of the planets in our sample are truly habitable. All we can say is that they're promising candidates."


Illustrations of the newfound planets pictured next to Earth.

Since 2009, when Kepler went hunting for planets, it has found 1,004 confirmed planets along with 4,175 planet candidates.

John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, wrote: "Each result from the planet-hunting Kepler mission's treasure trove of data takes us another step closer to answering the question of whether we are alone in the universe.”