NASA the U.S. space agency said it found nearly 1,300 planets outside our solar system. Nine of the planets are orbiting stars at the distance that can support life. NASA said that the Kepler space telescope confirmed the existence of 1,284 planets. This result came from studying more than 4,000 possible planets identified by a statistical analysis. Scientists said the research is important to help them find out whether there is life on other planets. Paul Hertz is NASA’s director of astrophysics. He said, "this gives us hope that somewhere out there, around a star much like ours, we can eventually discover another Earth." He said before the Kepler space telescope launched, scientists did not know whether exoplanetsthose outside our solar systemwere rare or common in the galaxy. We now know there could be more planets than stars.”