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NASA teams with Google to discover distant solar system as big as our own

An eighth planet has been found in a faraway solar system, the only other system to be discovered with the same number of planets as our own.

Even more amazing, machines and not humans made the discovery. NASA joined with Google on Thursday to announce the finding.

This eighth planet orbits the star known as Kepler-90, 2,545 light-years away.

Like Earth, this new planet, Keplar-90i, is the third rock from its sun. But it’s much closer to its sun and therefore a scorching 427 Celsius at the surface.

An eighth planet called Keplar-90i has been found in a faraway solar system, matching our own in numbers. Photo: AAP
An eighth planet called Keplar-90i has been found in a faraway solar system, matching our own in numbers. Photo: AAP

Google used data collected by NASA’s exoplanet-hunter, the Kepler Space Telescope, to develop its machine-learning computer program. It focuses on weak planetary signals — so feeble and numerous it would take humans ages to examine.

This is the only eight-planet solar system found like ours — so far.

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The rocky planet orbits its star once every 14.4 days and was discovered using a machine learning from Google.

“Just as we expected, there are exciting discoveries lurking in our archived Kepler data, waiting for the right tool or technology to unearth them,” said Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division in Washington.

“This finding shows that our data will be a treasure trove available to innovative researchers for years to come.”

This is the only eight-planet solar system found like ours. Artist impression: NASA
This is the only eight-planet solar system found like ours. Artist impression: NASA