Our galaxy is brimming with small solar system lookalikes. More than 300 planetary systems reminiscent of our own have been found in data collected by NASA's premiere planet-hunter, the Kepler space telescope. The discoveries add to the unexpected diversity of exoplanets that exist in the Milky Way.
"The planets are small, they have circular orbits, their orbital planes are flat – it starts to look like home very quickly," says Jason Rowe of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. "They're like scaled-down versions of the inner solar system."
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