Texas jury sentences child killer to life in prison instead of death in sign times are changing

Gabriel Armandariz with his boys, Gatlin, 2, and Luke, eight months, before their deaths. Source: Facebook

WARNING: Graphic content

IN AMERICA’S death penalty capital, this one seemed like an open and shut case.

In an act of apparent spite, Gabriel Armandariz murdered his defenceless young sons, hid them underneath his Texas home and sent pictures of their bodies, including one hanging in a wardrobe, to the childrens’ mother Lauren Smith.

In one text to Smith, Armandariz, who complained of her partying ways, wrote: “I commend the spirits of these two boys to the Lord. I would much rather be with them than be out partying with friends.”

Alongside a picture of himself with the two boys on a bed, Armandariz also texted: “We love u, goodbye”.

Police found the bodies of Luke, eight months, and Gatlin, 2, within hours of the disturbing texts. Armandariz, 32, later confessed.

The 2011 murders sent chills down the spines of the hardest Texans. Armandariz, it seemed, was destined for the death chamber.

But when the case came to trial earlier this year, something happened in the courtroom that would have never happened 10 years ago. A jury returned a life in prison verdict. Armandariz, described as a “lying, manipulative baby killer”, would be spared the execution chamber.

Texas newspaper the Fort Worth Star Telegram reported jurors came to their decision after eight hours.

“The lawyers were crying. The jury was crying. Trial observers were crying,” journalist Tim Cole wrote.

Gabriel Armandariz in Fort Worth, Texas. Picture: Ron T. Ennis / Fort Worth Star-Telegram Source: Getty Images

So what happened? Did the men and women of the jury go soft? If they did, they’re not alone.

Not one Texas jury has sentenced a single guilty party to death this year.

That’s in stark contrast to the 48 people executed in Texas in 1999, or 39 executed in 2000, or 24 executed in 2009.

Experts say it’s a trend that will soon see the death penalty abolished in even the most conservative US states.

Peter Norden, a member of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty and adjunct professor at RMIT University, said there’s been a “big shift” in the way Americans view capital punishment.

“It’s happening,” he told news.com.au.

“Abolition of the death penalty is happening throughout the world quite rapidly. The states are the toughest nut to crack but it’ll definitely happen. There are signs of it already.”

Those signs include a jury in Texas deliberating for just 10 minutes before returning with a non-death-penalty verdict this year and Nebraska becoming the first conservative state since 1973 to reject death by lethal injection.

So what’s behind the shift?

On the surface, it has everything to do with jurors being offered life without parole as a means of punishment. That sentencing option was only adopted in Texas in 2005.

Prof Norden said botched executions also played an important role.

“The breakdown in the system of executing was a dramatic scandal,” he said.

He was referring to the execution of Clayton Lockett, described as “cruel and unusual”.

Clayton Lockett’s execution lasted 43 minutes but has changed the way juries think about the death penalty. Source:Supplied

Lockett, on death row in Oklahoma for the brutal kidnapping, rape and murder of a teenager in 1999, suffered through a torturous 43-minute execution after an untested combination of drugs were incorrectly administered.

Nine months after Lockett’s botched execution, Oklahoma put to death another prisoner in similarly distressing scenes.

Charles Warner, a child rapist and murderer, cried out from the death chamber “My body is on fire” as his lethal injection was administered.

The incidents sparked a US Supreme Court hearing into whether death by lethal injection is unconstitutional.

Prof Norden said world trends were also impacting juries.

“For a long time, criminal justice in the states has been black and white. In the last five years or so there’s been a rethink.

“There was for so long a sense that the threat to Americans was from within. Now it’s external.”

He said wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the threat from Islamic State have changed the way Americans view their own citizens.

There are still 31 US states where the death penalty applies. They include Alabama, California, Missouri, Washington, Indiana and Texas. States that recently abolished the practice include Nebraska (2015), Maryland (2013), Illinois (2011), New Mexico (2009) and New York (2007).

“The abolition family is growing in numbers,” Prof Norden said. “It’s only a matter of time.”

Is this the United States’ biggest mistake in the Middle East?

Left wing protesters denounce a police operation against Kurdish militants, on July 24 in Istanbul, Turkey. Picture: Yasin Akgul / AFP Source: AFP

HAS the United States just made a huge strategic mistake in its fight against Islamic State?

The US has welcomed Turkey as a new partner in the fight against IS in Syria but some commentators are worried whether there is an ulterior motive to its involvement.

Turkey has sat on the sidelines of the conflict for months despite IS fighting right on its doorstep. IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL, now controls almost 100km of the 910km border between Syria and Turkey.

But Turkish and US officials are this week discussing the creation of a safe zone near Turkey’s border, which would be cleared of IS fighters and turned into a secure area for Syrian refugees to return.

Turkey will also allow the US to launch air strikes from its strategically located Incirlik Air Base.

While the military backing of Turkey is a welcome development for the US, concerns have been raised after Turkey started its own air strikes.

Instead of just attacking IS targets in Syria, Turkey also hit military forces of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq.

Some analysts are now speculating that weakening the PKK may be one of the primary motivations for Turkey becoming involved in the fight against IS.

There are several different groups of Kurds fighting in Syria and Iraq as well as living in Turkey, Iran and Armenia.

The US has been fighting IS with the help of Kurdish fighters in Syria, but this group is aligned with the PKK fighters in Iraq, which Turkey considers a terrorist group.

Turkey’s strike against PKK is likely to complicate the war against IS and could put at risk the US’s successful partnership with the Kurds in Syria. It may also destabilise the Middle East.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has already said his council of ministers views the Turkish air strikes in his country as “a dangerous escalation and a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.”

Turkey’s targeting of the PKK in Iraq may also fire up the Kurds living in its own country, which make up about 20 per cent of its population. This could lead to violence and civil unrest, working to weaken and destabilise Turkey.

Political instability in Tunisia and Libya has already helped Islamic State to gain a foothold in these countries because residents begin to feel the group offers a sense of security.

Turkey has become increasingly violent in the past two years as the government tries to assert its authority and suppress dissent in the country. It regularly uses a water cannon to disperse protesters and recently arrested 1000 people who called for peace in its capital Ankara.

Some have suggested that by bringing Turkey into the war with IS, the US could ultimately help to destabilise the country without making a big difference to defeating IS.

Tensions in Turkey are high, with police routinely using water cannon to disperse nightly protests in Istanbul and other cities denouncing IS and the government's policies on Syria. Picture: Bulent Kilic / AFP Source: AFP

“If so, America will have committed its biggest mistake in the Middle East since it invaded Iraq in 2003, believing it could overthrow Saddam Hussein and replace him with a pro-American government,” an article on the Independent observes.

WHY IS TURKEY TARGETING THE KURDS?

The Kurds are an ethnic group with their own language living in a region spanning present-day Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has been fighting Turkey for an autonomous state since 1984 in a war than has claimed tens of thousands of lives. Turkey considers the PKK a terrorist group, as does the US, European Union, and NATO.

While there has been a recent cease fire, tensions have risen since the Turkish elections on June 7, when pro-Kurdish party, the HDP, won 80 seats thanks to support from non-Kurdish voters.

This diminished the power of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since it came to power in 2002.

To pour more salt in the wound, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed to win backing for his ambition to create a presidential system.

Now some analysts believe that the Turkish government may want to target the Kurdish forces fighting on its borders after the disappointing election result.

Commentator Cengiz Candar wrote in the Radikal online newspaper that President Erdogan wanted to taint the Kurdish political group HDP by associating it with the PKK.

“The battle with terror is a pretext. The aim is revenge for June 7,” Candar wrote.

Striking against the PKK — still detested by many Turks — could see the ruling party pick up more nationalist votes if the government called a snap election in the hopes of improving its low vote of 41 per cent.

Turkey’s Kurds make up an estimated 20 per cent of the population and Erdogan had previously won praise for implementing cautious reforms for them.

Female members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) patrolling the outskirts of Makhmur, a northern Iraqi town. Picture: Eddie Gerald / AAP / NewZulu Source: AAP

A fragile ceasefire with PKK that has been observed since 2013 seems to be at an end after Turkish air strikes targeted the Kurdish soldiers in northern Iraq last week. Since then two Turkish soldiers were killed in a car-bomb attack that the Turkish army blamed on the PKK.

On top of its own domestic agenda, Turkey also wants the prevent the Kurds from gaining a strong foothold in Syria and realising the dream of creating an autonomous Kurdish region — known as Rojava — on its doorstep.

The creation of this Kurdish region has been the aim of the Kurdish political party in Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is also affiliated with PKK.

BUT THE KURDS ARE REALLY GOOD AT FIGHTING ISLAMIC STATE

Complicating matters is the American alliance with Kurdish fighters in Syria, who are not part of PKK but are members of its affiliated organisation, the People’s Protection Unit (YPG).

In a conflict where the Americans have complained about having no reliable partners, the YPG has been a welcome force and have also been the most successful in driving out the jihadists. This year they took back the Syrian border town of Kobane and more than a dozen Assyrian Christian villages.

This is in stark contrast to the defeats suffered by the Iraqi security forces, which have been embarrassed by reports of soldiers fleeing battles with IS in Iraq, and losing the cities of Ramadi and Mosul.

US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter talks to troops in Iraq. Picture: Carolyn Kaster / AFP Source: AFP

This useful alliance is now under threat with the entrance of a new, more powerful partner in Turkey. Turkey has fought a decades-long war with the YPG’s mother organisation, the PKK, which maintains bases in remote parts of northern Iraq and wants to create a separate state for Kurds.

Adding to concerns are reports from Kurdish fighters in Syria who say Turkish troops shelled a town near Kobane, which the Kurds managed to take back from Islamic State in a major victory earlier this year.

Turkish officials have dismissed the claims, insisting their forces were only targeting the IS group in Syria, and the PKK in neighbouring Iraq.

Turkey has lumped the secular PKK together with the Islamist IS in a broad “war on terror”, even though the groups are bitterly opposed.

On Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu refused to draw a distinction between the Islamic State group and the PKK.

“There is no difference between PKK and Daesh,” Cavusoglu said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State group. The PKK is fighting the IS “for power, not for peace, not for security,” he said.

David Romano, Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University, said the chief focus of Turkey’s campaign may prove to be the PKK rather than IS.

A female fighter from the Kurdish People Protection Unit (YPG) in north-eastern Syria. Picture: Delil Souleiman / AFPSource: AFP

“Ankara thus hits several birds with one stone,” Romano said.

Turkey only acted against IS after blaming it for a suicide bombing that killed 32 people and in the face of sustained US pressure to take a more aggressive stance against the jihadists.

Dr Murat Yurtbilir of the Australian National University, told news.com.au the Kurdish forces could become collateral damage in the fight against Islamic State.

He said Turkey was a powerful partner in the US-led fight against Islamic State and had more resources to contribute towards the fight against the jihadist group than the Kurds.

“The Kurdish forces took Kobane against ISIS but they had big support from western forces, without the (air) bombings it would have been almost impossible for them to do this,” Dr Yurtbilir said.

Turkey is also a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and an ally of the United States. So far the US seems to be defending Turkey. In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby said “Turkey has a right to defend itself” against the PKK.

But if Turkey did target Kurdish forces in its fight against IS, Dr Yurtbilir said this could lead to unrest in its own country.

Commander of the Turkish Air Forces Akin Ozturk (left) briefing Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu during a special security meeting on terrorist groups IS in Syria and the PKK in Iraq on July 25. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

“The Kurdish situation is risky because the Turkish government may take a harsh approach to Kurdish people, and the Kurdish may attempt bloody revenge in Turkish cities such as bombings,” Dr Yurtbilir said.

Another expert believes the Turks also seem to have prioritised defeating Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad.

Ege Seckin, a Turkey expert at IHS Country Risk, said IS was a national security threat for Turkey, but it was a secondary one.

“The two key points in Turkey remain: one — topple the Assad regime, and two — prevent the establishment of a continuous Kurdish territorial entity in the region,” he said.

Russian neo-Nazi Ilya Goryachev was jailed for life for a string of hate killings in Russia

Ilya Goryachev leader of a militant neo-Nazi group, was jailed for life after he was convicted of ordering five brutal killings including that of a prominent human rights lawyer. Pic: AP. Source: AP

HE IS responsible for ordering a string of hate killings, including the daylight shooting of a human rights lawyer and a journalist.

But it wasn’t just Ilya Goryachev’s brutal actions that were disturbing, it was how he became so untouchable in elite and political circles across multiple countries that is frightening.

The neo-Nazi, who was jailed for life on Friday, is the former leader of the Russian nationalist group Russky Obraz (Russian Image) and one of the founders of Battle Organisation of Russian Nationalists, or BORN.

The militant group is responsible for a racist killing spree that took place in the Soviet Union between 2008 and 2010.

While there has been no doubt the motivations for the killings have stemmed from the group’s far-right views, there has been speculation within Russia that they may have also been sanctioned from a higher authority.

Among the ten murders were the assassination of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and reporter Anastasia Baburova.

Markelov was pursuing a case against a Russian colonel who was accused of murdering an 18-year-old Chechen girl, when he was gunned down in broad daylight, a short walk from the Kremlin.

Novaya Gazeta journalist Baburova was walking near him and went to his aid but was also shot dead.

The murders made headlines across the world, and the Kremlin received widespread condemnation by human rights organisations.

BORN was also responsible for taking out Moscow judge Eduard Chuvashov in April 2010. The judge was notorious for handing out long prison terms to nationalists.

They also killed a number of anti-fascists including the brutal slaying of Tajikistani Salekh Azizov whose severed head was found wrapped in a plastic bag in a Moscow bin. His body, which had been stabbed six times, was found 19 kilometres away.

BORN reportedly sent images of Azizov’s beheading to human rights organisations in Russia.

Another victim was anti-racism campaigner Ilya Djaparidze who was killed the night before he was due to lead a rally at a Dinamo FC football match.

Lawyer Stanislav Markelov who was shot and killed after a press conference in Central Moscow after he attempted to draw attention to the release of an army colonel convicted of murder in Chechnya. Source: AP

Journalist Anastasia Barburova who was shot along with human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov in Central Moscow in 2009. Source: AP

According to The Balkanist, Goryachev was well connected. And not just in Russian political circles.

He worked for an Orthodox television channel for a short time and wrote articles for several newspapers. He also claimed to have worked as an assistant to two Russian MPs.

After he testified against his best friend and BORN co-founder Nikita Tikhonov during the murder trial for Markelov and Baburova, he fled to Serbia where he regularly associated with the country’s educated elite.

Back in his home country, the historian was reportedly linked to Vladislav Surkov who, at one stage, was considered the second most powerful man in Russia.

Surkov was reported to have invented the concept of “manageable nationalism,” and oversaw domestic policy as deputy Kremlin chief of staff between 2008 and late 2011,The Moscow Times reported.

Surkov reportedly allowed neo-Nazis free rein to terrorise anti-fascist campaigners in a bid to stop them from attending rallies.

The Russky Obraz was considered the main enforcer of this rein of terror.

But when his organisation began receiving special treatment from the Kremlin, other far-right groups became jealous as well as suspicious.

Some claimed they thought the organisation “served a higher master”.

Adding fuel to the fire were the circumstances surrounding Goryachev’s arrest.

After Tikhonov and his girlfriend Yevgenia Khasis were convicted for the murders of Markelov and Baburova, Goryachev fled to Serbia.

Despite being linked to the numerous murders carried out by his organisation, he was somehow allowed to leave Russia and move to a small town in the Serbian countryside.

Goryachev always had a fascination weith Serbia, he became obsessed with the NATO bombing of the region as a teenager in 1999.

Russky Obraz was the Russian spin-off of Obraz, a Serbian Orthodox clerical-fascist movement.

For three years Goryachev roamed free, seemingly immune to the reaches of the Russian authorities.

But his luck ran out on May 8, 2013, the same day Surkov ‘resigned’ from Russian politics.

He was arrested at Belgrade airport and was held in a Belgrade prison until he was extradited back to Russia to stand trial for the murders.

On Friday, Goryachev was found guilty of five murders including the executions of Markelov and Baburova.

He was also found guilty of setting up an ultra-nationalist group and illegally possessing weapons. He had been charged with illegal arms trafficking.

Tikhonov, is serving a life sentence for shooting Markelov, while Khasis, was sent to a penal colony for 18 years.

Following the sentencing last week investigators said it was Goryachev “who gave Tikhonov the assignment to murder lawyer Stanislav Markelov”.

Goryachev felt “ideological hatred and enmity” towards Markelov due to his “professional activities in defending the rights of victims with anti-fascist views,” they added.

NASA discovers Earth’s bigger, older cousin, Kepler 452b

NASA says new Earth-like planet discovered

• NASA finds closest twin to Earth 2.0: Kepler-452b
• Orbits star every 385 days
• 60 per cent larger radius than Earth
• Likely mass 5-times that of Earth
• Located 1,400 light years away

“ARE we alone in the universe?

“We’re taking one small step in answering that question today.”

And with that, astronomers hunting for another Earth announced they have found what may be the closest match yet, a potentially rocky planet circling its star at the same distance as the Earth orbits the Sun, NASA said overnight.

“Until about 20-years ago, we didn’t know the answer to that. Now we have a definitive answer.

“Today we’re announcing the discovery of an exoplanet that as far as we can tell, is a pretty close cousin to the Earth and our sun.

“This is about the closest twin to Earth 2.0 that we’ve found so far, and I really emphasise so far.”

Not only is this planet squarely in the Goldilocks zone — where life could exist because it is neither too hot nor too cold to support liquid water — its star looks like an older cousin of our Sun, the US space agency said.

Artist impression of the surface of Kepler 452b created by the SETI institute, who have been working in conjunction with NASA. Credit: SETI Institute/Danielle Futselaar Source: Supplied

How the planets stack up in comparison to Kepler-452b. Picture: NASA Source: Supplied

— WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR —

Known as Kepler-452b, the planet was detected by the US space agency’s Kepler Space Telescope, which has been hunting for other worlds like ours since 2009.

“Kepler-452b is orbiting a close cousin of our Sun, but one that is 1.5 billion years older,” NASA said in a statement.

Kepler-452b orbits a parent star, belonging to the same class as the sun, it’s just 4 per cent bigger and 10 per cent brighter. It takes 385 days to orbit the star.

Its radius is 60 per cent larger than Earth with a likely mass five times that of our own.

“You and I would weigh twice as much as we do now on the planet”, said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

“We’d also expect the atmosphere to be thicker and with more cloud cover, with very active volcanoes.”

Kepler-452b’s orbit is nearly the same size of Earth, using ten per cent more energy.

According to NASA, Earth will follow in Kepler’s footsteps and will receive the same amount of energy in 1.5 billion years.

The planet, located in the “habitable zone” of the universe, lies 1,400 light years away.

“We know little about the atmosphere about this planet, it certainly has an atmosphere but details of its composition are totally unknown to us,” said Jon Jenkins, Kepler data analysis lead at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

The sweep of NASA Kepler mission’s search for small, habitable planets in the last six years. Picture: NASA Source:Supplied

— IS THERE EVIDENCE OF LIFE ON KEPLER-452B? —

Jenkins was wary about confirming or denying this, adding Kepler’s job description was to “count the number of small planets in our near the habitable zones of sun-like stars” instead of touching down on the planet and searching for alien life.

“The exciting thing is we’ve found so many planetary systems that are unlike our solar system. Signs of life require advanced technology and instruments in space, and so what Kepler is doing is telling us there are world’s out there that we can go forward and pursue following them up.”

There are 4,696 planet candidates now known with the release of the seventh Kepler planet candidate catalogue — an increase of 521 since the release of the previous catalogue in Jan. 2015. The blue dots show planet candidates from previous catalogues, while the yellow dots show new candidates from the seventh catalogue. New planet candidates continue to be found at all periods and sizes due to continued improvement in the detection techniques. Picture: NASA Ames/W. Stenzel Source: Supplied

— COULD HUMANS LIVE ON THE PLANET? -

“This is humankind’s first step,” said Kepler research scientist Jeff Coughlin.

“It’s a long-term goal but a very exciting one.

“You and I probably won’t be travelling to these planets — but our children’s children could be. This gives us something to aim for.”

“One generation from now we might be able to get there. It gives humankind something to shoot for.”

Coughlin went on to say that Mars was the next closest habitable planet in our solar system.

Today Kepler-452b is receiving 10 per cent more energy from its parent star than the Earth is from the Sun. Kepler-452b has spent six billion years in the habitable zone of its star; longer than Earth. Picture: NASA Ames/J. Jenkins Source:Supplied

— IS THERE EVIDENCE OF LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE? -

“We’re listening in to see if anyone is broadcasting (from another planet), using radio waves,” said Jeff Coughlin, Kepler research scientist at SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.

“That’s a hard question to answer, we’re taking steps about as aggressively as technology will permit.

“We really don’t know what (a civilisation) would use, if there is something better than radio.

“We’ll stick with what we do know and keep listening. If down the road we find something better we’ll use that.”

The team detailed the difficulties in reaching such universes, and the hurdles in finding extraterrestrial life.

Want to get quickly up to speed on the search for earth-lilke planets? Try this! http://t.co/GhrYLQjAo5 pic.twitter.com/15kKbuOj3b

— NASA Kepler (@NASAKepler) July 23, 2015

“Before we get pictures of the sorts we just got from Pluto, where we fly-by a distant exoplanet and beam back to Earth the images, the speed at which the aircraft can get there, the speed of light, is many decades.

“First we have to discover the planets, but we can learn a lot from surveillance.

“If we had a sufficiently large telescope with current technology we could make the first primitive maps of an Earth-like planet.

Whether they have oceans, clouds, perhaps even seasons and start characterising what those planets are like.

“Whether we can discover life is a tricky question, would we recognise those signs of life?

“Those kinds of telescopes might be able to do that as well.”

Twelve Exoplanet discoveries from Kepler that are less than twice the size of Earth and reside in the habitable zone of their host star. These are arranged by size from left to right, and by the type of star they orbit, from the M stars that are significantly cooler and smaller than the sun, to the K stars that are somewhat cooler and smaller than the sun, to the G stars that include the sun. Picture: NASA/JPL-CalTech/R. Hurt Source: Supplied

— GLIMPSE INTO APOCALYPTIC FUTURE —

The planet, which is 1,400 light-years away, could offer a glimpse into the Earth’s apocalyptic future, scientists said.

Its star is four per cent more massive than the Sun and 10 per cent brighter. If the planet is rocky, and scientists believe that it has a better than even chance of being just that, then it could be in the midst of a fearful scenario, as the heat from its dying star evaporates Kepler-452b’s lakes and oceans.

“If Kepler-452b is indeed a rocky planet, its location vis-a-vis its star could mean that it is just entering a runaway greenhouse phase of its climate history,” said Doug Caldwell, a Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute scientist working on the Kepler mission.

“The increasing energy from its ageing sun might be heating the surface and evaporating any oceans. The water vapour would be lost from the planet forever,” he added.

“Kepler-452b could be experiencing now what the Earth will undergo more than a billion years from now, as the Sun ages and grows brighter.”

Kepler - Window into time

- PLANETARY CATALOGUE —

The Kepler mission launched in 2009 to search for exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system, particularly those about the size of Earth or smaller.

“Today, and thousands of discoveries later, astronomers are on the cusp of finding something people have dreamt about for thousands of years — another Earth,” NASA said in a statement.

On Thursday, NASA released the latest catalogue of exoplanet candidates, adding more than 500 new possible planets to the 4,175 already found by the space-based telescope.

“This catalogue contains our first analysis of all Kepler data, as well as an automated assessment of these results,” said SETI Institute scientist Jeffrey Coughlin.

This size and scale of the Kepler-452 system compared alongside the Kepler-186 system and the solar system. The size of the orbit of Kepler-452b is nearly the same as that of the Earth at 1.05 AU. Kepler-452b orbits its star once every 385 days. Picture: NASA Source: Supplied

The new catalogue includes 12 candidates that are less than twice the diameter of Earth and which are orbiting in the habitable zones of their stars.

Of those 12 new candidates, Kepler-452b “is the first to be confirmed as a planet,” NASA said.

Kepler identifies possible planets by watching for dips in the brightness of stars, which could be caused by a planet passing between the star and the telescope.

Other scientific tools are needed to judge whether the planet is gassy or rocky. The Kepler mission has cost NASA about $600 million, and the US space agency said in 2013 that two of its orientation wheels had lost function, leaving the space telescope beyond repair.

But scientists have years to pore over the data it has returned in order to narrow the search for Earth-like worlds.

- Additional reporting by AFP

Picture: NASA Source: Supplied