Quote:

---

Researchers unveiled a total of three planets Thursday, including two potentially livable super-Earths. The discoveries bring the Kepler team closer to its goal.

An artist drew (l. to r.) Kepler-22b, Kepler-69c, Kepler-62e, Kepler 62f, and Earth to scale to show the similarities in size. Scientists using NASA's Kepler space telescope have found the best candidates yet for potentially life-bearing worlds beyond our solar system, officials said Thursday. JPL-Caltech / NASA Ames / Reuters

Two potentially livable super-Earths and an outsized version of Venus were unveiled Thursday, the latest in a string of remarkable discoveries from NASA's Kepler mission.

Kepler is a space-based observatory whose unblinking gaze has rested on some 170,000 stars simultaneously since May 2009.

The three planets are the smallest the observatory has yet detected in stellar habitable zones. These zones represent distances where a planet receives enough light from its host star to harbor liquid water on its surface. Liquid water is essential for the emergence of organic life.

The discoveries bring the Kepler team tantalizingly close to its ultimate goal – to find Earth-mass planets orbiting sun-like stars at Earth-like distances, while also taking a broader census to see how many planetary systems with an Earth-like planet the Milky Way may hold.

Led by William Borucki, a researcher at the National Aeronautic and Space Administration's Ames Research Center near Mountain View, Calif., the team has confirmed 115 extra-solar planets so far, and it has amassed a roster of more than 2,700 planet candidates. More at http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0418/Livable-super-Earths-Two-ca
ndidates-among-Kepler-s-latest-finds?nav=87-frontpage-spotlight

---