NASA Kepler Discovery: Eighth Planet Found In Alien Solar System Ties Our Own

NASA scientists announced on Thursday that the space agency's Kepler Space Telescope had discovered an eighth planet in an alien solar system, meaning it has at least as many worlds as our own solar system. The faraway system orbits around the star Kepler-90, which is about 2,500 light-years away from Earth. Astronomers found seven planets revolving around that star in 2013. The discovery of the new planet Kepler-90i "ties Kepler-90 with our own solar system for having the most known planets," Paul Hertz, the director of NASA's astrophysics division at its Washington, D.C, said during a NASA teleconference on Thursday. The discovery shows that "stars can have large families of planets just like our solar system."