After its discovery of 1,094 exoplanet candidates on Monday, the NASA Kepler space telescope is expected to find more alien planets before the end of iots prime mission in November 2012, space officials said.

Kepler's new discovery of 1,094 new exoplanet has brought the telescope's total discovery tally of alien planets to 2,326.

"I think that we're going to have at least one more batch that's going to be a marked increase," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler deputy science team lead at NASA's Ames Research Cente, during the Kepler Science Conference at Ames.

Launched in March 2009 to find Earth-size planets in their parent stars' habitable zone, the $600 million Kepler mission detects planets in what is known as the transit method. The telescope watches for changes in brightness caused when a planet transits, or crosses its star from Kepler's perspective, blocking some of the star's light.

If the telescope observes three such transits, it means a potential alien world find. However, it remains a "planet candidate" until follow-up observations by large ground-based instruments confirms it.

Kepler's 2,326 candidates represent the telescope's discoveries in its first 16 months of observations, from May 2009 to September 2010. About 30 have already been confirmed, but researchers have estimated that at least 80percent will end up being the real deal.

Researchers say the list of candidates is likely to jump considerably before Kepler's prime mission ends in November 2012. And many more alient planets may be discovered after November 2012 as a proposal to extend the telescope's operations for an additional four years or so is in the works.