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.
This new, big, dense planet is rocky, like Earth, and has the right temperatures for water, putting it in the habitable zone for life, according to a study published Wednesday in the 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.
The latest discovery is called LHS 1140b. It belongs to a class of planets called super-Earths that are more massive than Earth but not quite the size of giants Neptune or Jupiter.
It’s 40 percent wider than Earth but it has 6.6 times Earth’s mass, and three times the gravity. Don't expect to weigh less if you travel there.
In the constellation Cetus, and is 39 light years or 230 trillion miles away.
The first planet outside our solar system was discovered in 1995. Astronomers have now identified 52 potentially habitable planets and more than 3,600 planets outside our solar system.
A group of seven mostly Earth-sized planets in or near the habitable zone found circling a star called Trappist-1 were discovered earlier this year are also about 39 light years away, but it in a different direction.
In August, astronomers found that the nearest planet to Earth outside our solar system, only 25 trillion miles away.
Astronomers and scientists feel that if they can find a way to look at the atmospheres of these planets, that they can better estimate if conditions on these alien worlds would be suitable for life.