The team actually discovered three new planets orbiting stars within 44 light years. But only one of the planets that are in the so-called Goldilocks zone, the circuit around the Sun, where the temperature is not too hot and not too cold for liquid water presence.
"The star HD 40307 is an old dwarf stars are very quiet, so there is no reason why such a planet could contain Earth's climate," said Guillem Angla-Escude from the University of Goettingen, Germany. He led the study with Mikko Tuomi at the University of Hertfordshire in England.
The planet has a mass at least seven times the mass of Earth, but orbit the same distance from the sun is, which means the planet is receiving the amount of energy obtained by the Sun as Earth.
More than 800 planets have been found outside the Milky Way system since it was first detected in the early 1990s. But only a handful of planets have been in the area that could inhabited.
Even more rare are some planets spin zone, like this one, to create a day time and night time - thereby increasing the possibility of the formation of such an environment on Earth. The planet is not rotating said to be tied to the tides, and one half is in perpetual darkness.
"This is the closest planet Earth in the habitable zone that is not tied to the tides," said astronomer from the University of Hertfordshire Hugh Jones to Reuters - were monitored on Thursday (8/11)
