Astronomers have achieved a big milestone in the search for another Earth: the two smallest confirmed planets ever found orbiting another star… and they’re both about the size of Earth!
Artist’s illustration of the Kepler-20 planets with Earth and Venus for size comparison.
The planets are called
Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, and as you can see by the illustration above they are very close to the same size as our home world: 20e is about 11,100 km (6900 miles) in diameter, and 20f about 13,200 km (8200 miles) across. For comparison, Earth has a diameter of 12,760 km (7930 miles).
This makes them the smallest confirmed exoplanets seen orbiting another star! The previous record holder was
Kepler-10b, which has a diameter about 40% bigger than Earth’s.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...the-same-star/
Kepler is finding new planets constantly it seems, very exciting.