NASA discovers first rocky planet outside solar system

[Sidhu...Sidhaarth Roy]

Washington, Jan 10 (PTI) NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed the discovery of its first rocky planet, which measures 1.4 times the size of Earth and is the smallest planet ever discovered outside the solar system.

The planet has been named Kepler-10b, a NASA statement said.

"All of Kepler's best capabilities have converged to yield the first solid evidence of a rocky planet orbiting a star other than our sun," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler's deputy science team leader at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, and primary author of a paper on the discovery accepted by the Astrophysical Journal.

Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone, the region in a planetary system where liquid water can exist on the planet's surface.

However, since it orbits once every 0.