11 new planetary systems discovered from Kepler glasses

The National Aeronautics Agency (NASA) on January 26 said the Kepler telescope has discovered 11 new planetary systems that contain 26 planets.

This new discovery has almost doubled the number of confirmed planets and multiplied three known stars with more than one planet orbiting that star. These planetary systems will help astronomers better understand the process of planet formation.

The aforementioned planets orbit around their star and have a diameter of 1.5 times that of the Earth that is larger than Jupiter. However, astronomers need to observe more to determine whether these planets are made of rock like Earth or in the form of gaseous form like Neptune.

The newly discovered planets orbit their stars from 6-143 days / round. All are closer to their star than the distance from Mercury to our Sun.

Doug Hudgins, a scientist in the Kepler program at NASA headquarters in Washington, said: 'Before implementing the Kepler mission, we only know about 500 planets in the universe. Now, within two years of observing a region that is not larger than your palm, Kepler has discovered more than 60 planets and more than 2,300 objects that could be planets. This proves that our galaxy has countless planets of all sizes and orbits. "

The Kepler telescope, launched into orbit in March 2009 with the most digital camera ever, is NASA's first mission to find Earth-like planets out of more than 150,000 stars. belonging to this device when turning around the Sun.

It is expected that this telescope will maintain its scientific activity until at least November 2012.