NASA Finds New Earth-Like Planet After Saving Kepler Space Telescope Mission

Down but not out, a battered NASA space telescope has just discovered another planet similar to Earth where life is possible some 180 light years away from our planet in the Pisces constellation.

The telescope-carrying Kepler spacecraft was launched in 2009 with the mission to find Earth-like planets in our Milky Way galaxy. For four years, Kepler stared at one spot in the sky where some 150,000 stars lie to see if any planets passed in front of them. The mission quickly yielded positive results as Kepler discovered a number of Earth-like worlds orbiting distant stars.

However in May 2013, one of the telescope's four reaction wheels, which kept it focused on one spot in the sky, malfunctioned. This rendered the spacecraft unstable and unable to focus on its target.

After studying different ways of resolving the problem, NASA scientists came up with a brilliant idea. They ingeniously maneuvered the crippled spacecraft so that pressure from the sunlight hitting the spacecraft's solar panels acts as a crutch for one of its busted legs. This stabilized the spacecraft, enabling Kepler to resume its planet-hunting mission.

Since the spacecraft is now dependent on an exact position for sunlight to hit its panels, the scientists have to readjust the spacecraft every 80 days. This necessitated a change in its concept. Instead of fixing its gaze at just one point in the sky as was its previous mandate, the spacecraft can now focus on any potentially interesting objects in the sky in search of planets.

Under this new program called K2, the space telescope discovered the exoplanet known as HIP 116454b.

The planet is a Super Earth about 2.5 times bigger than our world. It's a type of planet that doesn't exist in our solar system, scientists say. It sits very close to its bright star near the constellation Pisces, completing a "year" in just 9.1 days. Based on its mass, the planet could either be a watery world -- one-quarter rock, the rest water -- or a mini-Neptune with a thick, gassy atmosphere, said Andrew Vanderburg, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

This planet could be a good future target for the Hubble Space Telescope, or for the James Webb Space Telescope, set for launch in 2018. In the meantime, more K2 data should be coming in the next month or so, Vanderberg said.

NASA says with the reinvigorated Kepler planet-hunting mission, new worlds where life could potentially exists await to be discovered.

"K2 is uniquely positioned to dramatically refine our understanding of these alien worlds and further define the boundary between rocky worlds like Earth and ice giants like Neptune," said Kepler/K2 project scientist Steve Howell.