An international team of astronomers has discovered and confirmed a treasure trove of new worlds using NASA's Kepler spacecraft on its K2 mission. Out of 197 initial planet candidates, scientists have confirmed 104 planets outside our solar system. Among the confirmed is a planetary system comprising four promising planets that could be rocky.

These four planets, all between 20 and 50 percent larger than Earth by diameter, are orbiting the M dwarf star K2-72, found 181 light-years away in the direction of the Aquarius constellation. The host star is less than half the size of the sun and less bright. The planets' orbital periods range from five-and-a-half to 24 days, and two of them may experience irradiation levels from their star comparable to those on Earth. Despite their tight orbits -- closer than Mercury's orbit around our sun -- the possibility that life could arise on a planet around such a star cannot be ruled out, according to lead author Ian Crossfield, a Sagan Fellow at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson.

The researchers achieved this extraordinary "roundup" of exoplanets by combining data with follow-up observations by Earth-based telescopes including the North Gemini telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the Automated Planet Finder of the University of California Observatories, and the Large Binocular Telescope operated by the University of Arizona. The discoveries are published online in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series.

Both Kepler and its K2 mission discover new planets by measuring the subtle dip in a star's brightness caused by a planet passing in front of its star. In its initial mission, Kepler surveyed just one patch of sky in the northern hemisphere, determining the frequency of planets whose size and temperature might be similar to Earth orbiting stars similar to our sun. In the spacecraft's extended mission in 2013, it lost its ability to precisely stare at its original target area, but a brilliant fix. created a second life for the telescope that is proving scientifically fruitful.

After the fix, Kepler started its K2 mission, which has provided an ecliptic field of view with greater opportunities for Earth-based observatories in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Additionally, the K2 mission is entirely community-driven with all targets proposed by the scientific community.

Because it covers more of the sky, the K2 mission is capable of observing a larger fraction of cooler, smaller, red-dwarf type stars, and because such stars are much more common in the Milky Way than sun-like stars, nearby stars will predominantly be red dwarfs.

"An analogy would be to say that Kepler performed a demographic study, while the K2 mission focuses on the bright and nearby stars with different types of planets," said Crossfield. "The K2 mission allows us to increase the number of small, red stars by a factor of 20, significantly increasing the number of astronomical 'movie stars' that make the best systems for further study."

To validate candidate planets identified by K2, the researchers obtained high-resolution images of the planet-hosting stars as well as high-resolution optical spectroscopy. By dispersing the starlight as through a prism, the spectrographs allowed the researchers to infer the physical properties of a star -- such as mass, radius and temperature -- from which the properties of any planets orbiting it can be inferred.

These observations represent a natural stepping stone from the K2 mission to NASA's other upcoming exoplanet missions, such as the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and James Webb Space Telescope.

"This bountiful list of validated exoplanets from the K2 mission highlights the fact that the targeted examination of bright stars and nearby stars along the ecliptic is providing many interesting new planets," said Steve Howell, project scientist for the K2 mission at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. "These targets allow the astronomical community ease of follow-up and characterization, providing a few gems for first study by the James Webb Space Telescope, which could perhaps tell us about the planets' atmospheres."

This work was performed in part under contract with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory funded by NASA through the Sagan Fellowship Program executed by the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute.

NASA Ames manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. JPL in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Actually, I did read it and was thinking about the amazing possibilities. I was just watching Interstellar not too long ago. About sending crews to check out other worlds. The question for me is even if we could get there to humans have the right to destroy another planet in the solar systems. The self absorbed cares nothing about what they do to this planet and only for their own personal creature comforts.

How man thousands of light years is it a away. Do worm holes place us in other solar systems. Where do blacks holes lead are they a doorway?
Even in our own solar system, we have much to still learn. Are these planets inhabited? Exploration I love more than anything.

and the k2 planets details showing that some of them is suitable for the creatures living......

But humans may never get to see these in reality. It's like NASA always like to tease some individuals imaginations

Teleporting to another planet could be the only logical way to travel at light speed.
There is a worm hole here on earth that comnects it to another planet....somewhere around the great wall of china & it might sound crazy but that worm hole will link it to another planet & creatures from that planet will come through to earth.

Interesting has anyone ever gone through this worm hole and come back to see where it leads?

maybe you're right those palnet is far from the earth about 10 light years and also curret mission that journey to the mar still some kind of mess.....what ever it takes we won't see it untill we meet the st.john front the gate.....

the worm hole theory is wrong there are no any worm hole out in the space. the black hole it self is some kind of utral core of object the only thing if human do so by travel with that magnet will causes all crews totaly crush with the space ship or plane on the super dwarf star-"black hole" .......

I went through that wormhole once and when i came out the other side i was a T-Rex it scared the shiit outta me so i rushed back & was myself again

nasa is a big ***

A big what?

By the way nice tag breastsvigina, i wonder what it means

lol... you believe in wormholes, but not man landing on the moon...

nope....the quantoms do so.......

I am intrigued by quantum physics, theories on black holes and
Teleportation. We do still have a lot to learn. Everything has a place too so we will see, reach and learn when we are meant to.If...