After suffering from an emergency mode last month, NASA's Kepler Space Telescope just discovered a massive mother lode of exoplanets. NASA officials announced that the planet hunting spacecraft discovered a total of 1,284 new planets, which is the largest yet in a single discovery.

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Astronomers consider this as a crucial discovery as they utilized a new technique to enable a faster approach in searching for and confirming the existence of exoplanets. With the help of transit signals, scientists can now calculate the size of these exoplanets, along with their relative distance from their host star, if they are indeed in the habitable zone of their system. 

In this latest discovery, astronomers say that there are out of 550 rocky, Earth-like planets, nine of them have the potential to host microbial life.

To determine this, astronomers should be able to examine the exoplanet's atmosphere and surface composition however it may take a long time for this kind of technology to exist when it comes to space telescopes. With the help of the new James Webb Space Telescope and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), these instruments can provide more pivotal information about alien worlds across the Milky Way and beyond.

According to NASA's Astrophysics Division director Paul Hertz, during the launch of the Kepler Space Telescope in 2009, astronomers where uncertain if it can detect any exoplanet or anything at all. He adds that this new data obtained from Kepler is crucial in developing better technology for future missions in finding intelligent life in the universe.

One of Kepler's main missions is to determine if the light originating from these habitable exoplanets can be analyzed for biosignature gases. According to Sara Seager and her team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, by obtaining a comprehensive list of biosignature molecules, this can certainly increase the chances of finding more exoplanets in the habitable zone or even identify ones that have previously hosted microbial or even intelligent extraterrestrial life.

In addition, according to Nancy Kiang from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the search for alien life is still in its early stages but is now evolving at an unprecedented rate. Researchers are now working on searching and documenting thousands of biogenic gas molecules that have been detected in space. She adds that this can launch a new body of research in the identification of larger molecules and knowing their origins and their potential to host life.

This new study is published in The Astrophysical Journal.

TagsNASA, Kepler space telescope, Exoplanets, alien planets, New planets