Kepler telescope identifies new ‘habitable zone’ planet

Orb slightly larger than Earth orbits sunlike star

Kepler 452b

NEW WORLD  The newly identified exoplanet Kepler 452b orbits a sunlike star 1,400 light-years away from Earth. 

T. Pyle/JPL-Caltech/NASA

NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has discovered a “cousin” of Earth 1,400 light-years away.

The exoplanet Kepler 452b orbits a sunlike star at about the same distance as Earth orbits the sun, scientists reported at a news conference July 23.