NASA's Kepler telescope discovers 26 new planets

• Planetary scientists at National Aeronautics and space administration, NASA have announced that the US space agency's Kepler telescope has discovered 26 new planets spread among 11 solar systems.
• Kepler programme scientist at NASA headquarters, Doug Hudgins, said prior to the Kepler mission, perhaps 500 exoplanets across the whole sky was known. He said now in just two years, Kepler has discovered more than 60 planets and 2,300 planet candidates.
• The NASA team is, however, yet to determine whether any of these planets are solid rocky bodies like Earth, Venus, Mars and Mercury or are only made of gas like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
• The scientists have also claimed that the 26 planets orbit their stars between every six and 143 days.