An artist's impression of the Kepler spacecraft. Kepler has discovered five new planets beyond the solar system, the US space agency has said, just 10 months after Kepler launched into space to find Earth-like planets.

This image taken by the Kepler telescope and released by NASA in 2009 shows a small portion of Kepler's full field of view -- an expansive, 100-square-degree patch of sky in our Milky Way galaxy. NASA's Kepler space telescope has discovered five new planets beyond the solar system, the US space agency said, just 10 months after Kepler launched into space to find Earth-like planets.