NASA's Kepler Identified 20 More "Second Earth" Candidates Where Alien Life Could Thrive

A list of the potential "Second Earth" or where alien life can be found was released from the planets identified by NASA's Kepler Space telescope.

After careful study and scrutiny, scientist managed to catalogue the list of exoplanets identified by Kepler, which has proven to be a not so easy task. Kepler alone discovered more than 4,000 exoplanets in three years. Identifying the top contenders is vital in concentrating the time and efforts of scientists and astronomers so they will know where to look.

"That means we can focus in on the planets in this paper and perform follow-up studies to learn more about them, including if they are indeed habitable," one of the team members said in a statement.

Among the discovered exoplanets, 20 have Earth-like properties, like being rocky, that enabled scientists to say that they are most likely the best candidates to find alien life forms. The life-finding telescope gathered the data that helped astronomers identify the most suitable exoplanets for life. The list includes the bodies that potentially holds water, the key ingredient to life. Out of the 4,000, the 20 exoplanets that exhibit "Earth-like" properties are or potential second Earth were identified and will then be closely scrutinized and monitored from now on.

San Francisco University expert physicists did the rigorous sifting through the data from the Kepler telescope to be able to identify the top 20 exoplanets that can potentially hold life. Out of the 4,000, 216 exoplanets were located within the habitable zone, an area where a star that orbits a sun may be able to collect and hold liquid water.

"This is the complete catalogue of all of the Kepler discoveries that are in the habitable zone of their host stars," professor Stephen Kane, lead author of the study said in a statement.

Now that the top 20 second Earth candidates were identified, experts are optimistic that future missions can be launched to find alien life and habitable planets because they now know where to look.