Scientists on Nasa’s Kepler mission have spotted an eighth planet around a distant star, making it the first alien solar system known to host as many planets as our own. “This ties Kepler 90 with our own solar system for having the most known planets,” said Paul Hertz, director of astrophysics at Nasa’s headquarters in Washington DC. Facebook Twitter Pinterest The planets have a similar configuration to our system: small planets orbit close to their star; larger planets are farther away. The Kepler telescope hunts for alien worlds by detecting the shadows planets cast as they orbit their parent stars. The search turned up two new planets around different stars, Kepler 90i, and another world named Kepler 80g, the sixth planet now known to orbit its star.

Source: The Guardian December 14, 2017 19:07 UTC