Have we finally found EARTH 2.0? Astronomers discover first same-size planet in habitable zone that could support alien life

• The first Earth-sized world in the habitable zone of a star has been found
• Kepler-186f is 1.1 times the size of Earth and orbits its star in 130 days
• The discovery was made by a team of scientists using the Kepler telescope
• It could be the first planet found outside our solar system with liquid water
• And it is the most likely place for alien life to exist that's been found so far
  

By JONATHAN O'CALLAGHAN

PUBLISHED: 18:00 GMT, 17 April 2014 | UPDATED: 18:42 GMT, 17 April 2014

For decades astronomers have been searching for a world like our own outside the solar system that could host alien life.

And now astronomers have announced that they have found one - a planet 1.1 times the size of Earth orbiting a star just 490 light years away.

Called Kepler-186f, the planet is the first to be discovered with the right conditions for liquid water to exist on its surface, meaning it could support alien life as well.

The find was made by a team of astronomers led by Elisa Quintana of the SETI Institute at Nasa Ames Research Center, who pored through planetary data from Nasa’s Kepler space telescope.

To date, the telescope has found hundreds of planets, but most are uninhabitable worlds that are either too large or orbit too close to their host star to support life.

The discovery of Kepler-186f, therefore, is a big milestone in the field of planet hunting.

It is the fifth and outermost world of the planetary system around red dwarf star Kepler-186 and is almost certainly a rocky planet.

The find is significant because it is the first Earth-sized world we’ve found in the habitable zone of a star.

Habitable zones, also known as ‘Goldilocks zones’, are regions around a star where the temperature is just right for water to form.

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