This June 2, 2014 handout provided by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, shows the newly discovered ‘mega-Earth’ Kepler-10c dominating the foreground in this artist’s conception. Discovery of a huge rocky planet 17 times as heavy as the Earth has prompted scientists to, judging from its age, rethink the origins of the universe. Kepler-10c, the new find by NASA’s... 

Alan Boyle writes: A leader of the Kepler planet-hunting team has created a slow-moving scientific stir by telling an audience at a high-tech conference that our galaxy could harbor 100 million Earths, based on the space mission’s raw data. The resulting buzz focuses not only on the findings, but also on the means by which they came to light. The conclusions drawn by Harvard astronomer Dimitar...