The US space agency has just announced the discovery of the new "exoplanets" which are considered as similar to Earth due to their distance from the star they orbit.
Timothy Morton, associate research scholar at Princeton University in New Jersey, said: "We have discovered 1,284 new planets - the most explanets ever announced at one time."
It more than doubles the previous amount of exoplanets found by the Kepler Telescope, taking the total number to 2,325.
It comes after NASA said they now also believe every star in space has at least one planet orbiting it, further increasing the chance of life evolving somewhere.
Paul Hertz, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said: "The Kepler specialist telescope is the first capable of detecting call rocky planets in the habitable zone of their parent star.
"When launched we did not know if exoplanets or rocky exoplanets were rare and we now know they are extremely common and most stars have at least one planet orbiting.
"Our research is on just a fraction of possible exoplanets and knowing this is the first step in answering the question if we are alone in the universe."
Among the new discoveries are also a further 100 grade A rocky exoplanets which are the most likely for life to begin just like Earth.
And of these 24 were found to be of a similar size to Earth and distance from their stars in the so-called Goldilocks habitable zone, making them the most likelyy candidates for life.
Combined with 12 already found by Kepler researchers, there are now 36 of the Earth-like planets and a further 12 possible ones awaiting verification.
It was previously believed that many stars were out there alone, meaning the odds of other Earth-like planets with the right conditions for life to start are much higher than ever believed.
The information has come from astronomers researching swathes of data from the Kepler Telescope mission.
Initially more than 4,600 possible exoplanets were found and the 2,325 are those which have now been confirmed as definite exoplanets.
NASA made the major announcement about the latest findings from the Kepler research at a press conference which started at 6pm.
A NASA spokesman said: "When Kepler was launched in March 2009, scientists did not know how common planets were outside our solar system.
"Thanks to Kepler’s treasure trove of discoveries, astronomers now believe there may be at least one planet orbiting every star in the sky."
Kepler completed its prime mission in 2012, and collected data for an additional year in an extended mission.
In 2014, the spacecraft began a new extended mission called K2.
K2 continues the search for exoplanets while introducing new research opportunities to study young stars, supernovae and other cosmic phenomena.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/668945/NASA-Chance-of-life-being-out-there-boosted-as-every-star-has-at-least-one-planet--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Somewhere, an alien is wondering what we are up to...
