Despite earlier proclamations that the planet - initially named Kepler 22-b - was approximately 2.4 times bigger than Earth and existed some 600 light years away, further data beamed back by The Kepler space telescope has revealed the planet's identity to be that of our own planet.
"We feel really stupid about this," said lead Kepler investigator William Borucki. "All the data seemed to check out; there were no indicators that our wavelengths were in anyway corrupted. It's just... gosh, I feel so darn ridiculous."
Holding a press conference Tuesday morning, NASA's Deputy Administrator Lori B. Garver insisted that the oversight was possibly the largest case of mistaken identity the world has ever seen.
"I find it very difficult to face you all today after the events of the last 24 hours," she said. "All I can say is that it was a mistake. There's no going back; it's in print for everyone to read. We've just got to hold our hands up and admit that we made a boo-boo... a really big boo-boo."
"I'm sorry, I... I have to go now," she concluded.
In a related development, a spokesman for NASA later denied rumors that the agency was set to scrap its three-and-a-half-year mission to detect Earth-like planets, after critics of the program asked: "why in God's name would we want to find another Earth? Isn't one bad enough?"
Image credit: NASA. Public domain.