NASA finds a second solar system as big as ours: Google AI hunt finds an EIGHTH planet orbiting distant Kepler 90 star in breakthrough in hunt for aliens

NASA has discovered an eighth planet around a previously discovered distant star system.

NASA's Kepler space telescope has discovered an eighth planet in a distant star system called Kepler 90 - the first time a faraway star has been found to have the same number of planets orbiting it as our own sun.

Although the Kepler 90 solar system is not new, the eighth planet, Kepler 90i, is, after it was found using AI software in a groundbreaking project between Google and NASA.

The discovery of a system similar to our own raises hopes of finding alien life elsewhere in the universe. 

The Kepler-90 planets have a similar configuration to our solar system, with small planets orbiting close to their star and the larger planets found farther away.

According to NASA, this confirms for the first time that distant star systems can be home to 'families as large as our own.' 

The new planet, estimated to be about 30 percent larger than Earth, is 'not a place you'd like to visit,' said Andrew Vanderburg, astronomer and NASA Sagan Postdoctoral Fellow at The University of Texas, Austin.

'It is probably rocky, and doesn’t have a thick atmosphere'. And, temperatures at the surface are 'scorching.'

According to Vanderburg, the average surface temperature is likely around 800 degrees Fahrenheit. 

After the fix, Kepler started its K2 mission in 2014, which has provided an ecliptic field of view with greater opportunities for Earth-based observatories in both the northern and southern hemispheres.

Because it covers more of the sky, the K2 mission is capable of observing a larger fraction of cooler, smaller, red-dwarf type stars.