Astronomers discover another earth

In the Goldilocks region of our galaxy, a planet similar to Earth is revolving around a star. It is located in the Cygnus constellation 500 light-years away from Earth. The region surrounding a star known as the Goldilocks zone is where planet-sized bodies with sufficient atmospheric pressure can support liquid water on their surfaces.

This is the first planet of at least 40 billion Earth-sized planets to be discovered in the star’s habitable zone.

The system contains four more planets that orbit a star. The possibility of life on this planet will drastically increase if the star that this planet orbits closely resembles our Sun.

“We know of only one planet where life survives – Earth. When we hunt for life outside our solar system, we emphasize discovering planets with features that mimic that of Earth,” said Elisa Quintana, a research scientist at the SETI Institute at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and lead author of the paper published in the journal Science. “Discovering a habitable zone planet similar to Earth in size is a major breakthrough.”

Our Sun receives one-third of its energy from a nearby star, which is only one-half the size and mass of our Sun. It makes one orbit around its star every 130 days.