A very exciting discovery has been made by NASA’s Kepler/K2 mission recently.
Three planets, all slightly larger than Earth in diameter, orbit a star called GJ 9827, about 100 light-years away in the constellation Pisces the Fish. A study of the planet trio found that, although they’re all similar in size to our home planet, one of the most massive super-Earths found to date lies among them.
According to Kepler’s overall findings, super-Earth-sized planets (which have masses larger than Earth but smaller than Uranus and Neptune) are the most common in the Milky Way Galaxy. However, no planets of this size exist within our solar system. A group of researchers, led by Johanna Teske of the Carnegie Institution for Science, set out to determine why by learning more about the environment in which these planets formed.