Astronomers have found yet another planet that seems to have just the right Goldilocks combination for life: Not so hot and not so cold. It’s not so far away, either.
The Associated Press reports this new, big, dense planet is rocky, like Earth, and has the right temperatures for water, putting it in the habitable zone for life. The finding was first published today in the science journal Nature.
It’s the fifth such life-possible planet outside our solar system revealed in less than a year, but still relatively nearby Earth. Rocky planets within that habitable zone of a star are considered the best place to find evidence of some form of life.
“It is astonishing to live in a time when discovery of potentially habitable worlds is not only commonplace but proliferating,” says MIT astronomer Sara Seager, who wasn’t part of the study.
The first planet outside our solar system was discovered in 1995, but thanks to new techniques and especially NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler telescope, the number of them has exploded in recent years. Astronomers have now identified 52 potentially habitable planets and more than 3,600 planets outside our solar system.
The latest discovery, called LHS 1140b, regularly passes in front of its star, allowing astronomers to measure its size and mass. That makes astronomers more confident that this one is rocky, compared to other recent discoveries.
