At Last, Earth-Sized Alien Worlds (Infographic)

by Karl Tate, SPACE.com Infographics Artist

Date: 20 December 2011 Time: 01:02 PM ET

The Kepler space telescope has spied evidence of two Earth-sized worlds in a star system 950 light-years away.

On Dec. 20, 2011, astronomers announced the discovery an alien solar system 950 light-years from Earth that is chock full of planets, including the first two extrasolar worlds ever confirmed to be the size of our own Earth or smaller.

Finding Earth-size planets has been a major goal for NASA's Kepler space observatory, which spotted the small alien worlds and their larger cousins around a star known as Kepler 20. The two Earth-size planets (one is actually smaller than Earth) are known as Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f. See how the planets compare to Earth and the other planets in their alien star system in the infographic above.

Embed: Paste the code below into your site.

More Infographics

NASA's Radiation Storm Belt Probes mission will study Earth's radiation belts, the Van Allen Belts, like never before.

How NASA's Twin Radiation Belt Storm Probes Work (Infographic)

NASA was testing an astronaut escape ship designed to pull an Orion spacecraft should an emergency arise during launch.

Orion Capsule Emergency Escape System Test

Astronomers using the Kepler Space Observatory have spotted a record five planets crammed in close to their parent star, 1,100 light-years from Earth.

Tiny Alien Solar System Discovery Explained (Infographic)

MORE INFOGRAPHICS

TWITTER ACTIVITY

FACEBOOK ACTIVITY