from smh.com.au: NASA has announced a torrent of new planet discoveries, hailing a “bonanza” of 715 worlds now known outside the solar system thanks to the Kepler space telescope’s planet-hunting mission. A new method for verifying potential planets led to the volume of new discoveries from Kepler, which aims to help humans search for other worlds that may be like Earth. “What we have been able to do with this is strike the mother lode, get a veritable exoplanet bonanza,” said Jack Lissauer, a planetary scientist at NASA.