Among the new planets some are very promising from the point of view of habitability. Waiting for the new European Space Telescope, CHEOPS, which will study them in detail, Esa launches a contest for the mission symbol.
The Kepler Space Telescope , launched by NASA in 2009 to look for planets beyond the Solar System, has made it possible to identify 20 potentially habitable planets in one shot . To make them even more like Earth, it would also be that they would have an age comparable to that of our planet, and this lies in favor of the possibility that life has had all the time to evolve, just as it has happened on Earth .
KEPLER'S GREAT JOB
Among the new planets, what is in the habitability classification is KOI-7923.0 , almost as large as Earth (97%) and with a year of 395 land days . What differentiates it is the average global temperature, which should be lower than the Earth's, because it's mother's star is less hot than the Sun and the distance between them is slightly higher.
According to the Nasa Exoplanet Archive , with these discovery, the number of extrasolar planets rises to 3,550, belonging to 589 planetary systems. Kepler was the creator of the discovery of 4,496 objects, some of which are still to be confirmed.
WAITING FOR CHEOPE
Kepler's work will certainly have a major impetus starting in 2018, when the European CHEOPS (Characterising Exoplanets Satellite) mission will be launched. Over the next three and a half years, the task will be to examine in more detail the transit of planets that rotate around bright stars and more or less close to the Solar System.
In particular, CHEOPS will have to accurately measure the diameters of extrasolar planets already known to exist: since many have estimated their mass, thanks to their diameter it is possible to determine their composition, even roughly, and to know this with reasonable certainty if they are gassy or rocky.