They orbit the Kepler-62 star in the Constellation Lyra - 1, 200 light-years from Earth.
Kepler-69c, the biggest of this newly discovered trio is estimated to be 70 percent larger than Earth and takes 242 days to revolve around its sun-like star Kepler-69.
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In contrast, the third Earth-like planet, Kepler 69c, orbits a star very similar to our sun (that is, hotter than Kepler 62).
What makes it Vulcanlike, though, is that it circles its star, Kepler-10, once every 20 hours, in an orbit a twentieth the size of Mercury's.
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As we reported last month, an object surprisingly similar to an astronomical wild-goose from the 19th century, the mythic planet Vulcan, was found orbiting a star dubbed Kepler 10.
Astronomers using the Kepler telescope found the first known double-star planet just last September Kepler-16, a gassy oddball orb the size of Saturn that circles a pair of stars 200 light-years from Earth, like the planet Tatooine in the "Star Wars" films.
Astronomers using the Kepler telescope found the first known double-star planet just last September Kepler-16b, a gassy oddball orb the size of Saturn that circles a pair of stars 200 light-years from Earth, like the planet Tatooine in the "Star Wars" films.
Since Kepler 62 is a cooler star than our sun, planets can orbit closer to it than the Earth can to our sun before overheating.
The star is currently called Kepler 37, and the small world is currently designated Kepler-37b.
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So far, the research team has identified three planets circling Kepler-30, all of which orbit the star in the same plane.
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NASA's issuing back pats all round, as finding Kepler-37b has highlighted "the precision of the Kepler instrument" (although admittedly, the star's behavior was favorable), and suggests there are many more humble worlds of similar size awaiting our detection.
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Since Kepler finds planets by measuring the tiny dips in a star's brightness when a dark planet moves across the face of that star, less accurate photometry means Earth-like planets will be too hard to find.
Telescopes such as Kepler search for planets as they transit, or cross in front of, their star, causing telltale dips in the star's brightness.
Kepler flags exoplanet candidates via the transit method, which looks for dips in a star's brightness caused by an object crossing in front of it.
If several people flag the same star, the result is checked against the computer-derived results produced by the main Kepler team.
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Kepler-37b is a tad larger than our heavenly dance partner, the Moon, and whizzes round a star much like our Sun, with two larger planets in its system for company.
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