It's important to note that NASA's rules for what defines a 'planet' are incredibly exacting. The 1,284 newly discovered exoplanets were only announced as such after being identified with 99% confidence, but as NASA admits, that leaves out 1,327 other likely exoplanets that couldn't reach that 99% certainty. According to Natalie Batalha, the Kepler mission scientist at NASA:

"They say not to count our chickens before they're hatched, but that's exactly what these results allow us to do based on probabilities that each egg (candidate) will hatch into a chick (bona fide planet). This work will help Kepler reach its full potential by yielding a deeper understanding of the number of stars that harbor potentially habitable, Earth-size planets—a number that's needed to design future missions to search for habitable environments and living worlds."

Even more remarkable than the sheer number of planets discovered is the method by which Kepler discovered them. Instead of directly spotting individual planets and identifying them with something like high-powered optics, Kepler watches for 'transits'. According to NASA's description of the process:

"When a planet passes in front of a star as viewed from Earth, the event is called a "transit". On Earth, we can observe an occasional Venus or Mercury transit. These events are seen as a small black dot creeping across the Sun-Venus or Mercury blocks sunlight as the planet moves between the Sun and us. Kepler finds planets by looking for tiny dips in the brightness of a star when a planet crosses in front of it-we say the planet transits the star."

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NASA Announces the Discovery of 1,284 New Exoplanets

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