He even inhabited much younger cloned bodies, but those quickly deteriorated because he was so full of dark side energy (or just such an evil jerk). It's no longer canon, but saw him returning six years after Return of the Jedi. The whole Palpatine-as-a-clone idea originated in the 1991 Dark Empire comic series. So he's more like a wraith - in the novelization, Rey notes that he smells like 'rotting meat' - until he steals the Force energy from Rey and Ben Solo in the final battle. When Kylo Ren first meets Palpatine, he can sense that the Sith Lord is the real deal and that his cloned body 'couldn't last much longer.' Uh oh, it's nudey young Palpatine! The Sith baddy was resurrected in the non-canon Dark Empire comic series. Because Palpatine was trapped in a broken, dying form.' 'Perhaps Plagueis was having the last laugh after all. The transfer was imperfect, and the cloned body wasn't enough,' author Rae Carson wrote in the novel. The secret place had not completed its preparations.
Unfortunately for ol' Palps, it didn't revive him fully.
The novelization confirmed that Palpatine transferred his essence to a cloned body he had ready for just such an eventuality - a trick he stole from his master Darth Plagueis before killing him.
