o The research paper these findings are based on as published by The Astrophysical Journal on May 10, 2016: False Positive Probabilities For All #Kepler Objects Of Interest: 1284 Newly Validated Planets And 428 Likely False Positives (Morton et al, 2016).
Since #Kepler launched in 2009, 21 planets less than twice the size of Earth have been discovered in the habitable zones of their stars. The orange spheres represent the nine newly validated planets announcement on May 10, 2016. The blue disks represent the 12 previous known planets. These planets are plotted relative to the temperature of their star and with respect to the amount of energy received from their star in their orbit in Earth units. The sizes of the #exoplanets indicate the sizes relative to one another. The images of Earth, Venus and Mars are placed on this diagram for reference. The light and dark green shaded regions indicate the conservative and optimistic habitable zone.Credits: #NASA Ames/N. Batalha and W. Stenzel.
