Michelle Kunimoto, a 26-year-old astronomy student at the University of British Columbia has discovered 17 news exoplanets (a planet that orbits a star outside the solar system) while studying the data from NASA’s Kepler Mission (a spacecraft sent to survey the region of Milky Way and discover planets and stars) which retired in 2018.
One planet is in the potentially habitable zone of its star with just the right amount of temperature and conditions for liquid water to be found.
The exoplanet, named KIC-7340288 b, is 1.5 times the size of Earth and is probably rocky and not gaseous. Most of the 17 planets that Kunimoto found are significantly bigger than Earth, as much as about 8 times. The smallest planet found is 2/3rd of the size of Earth.