NASA discovers most Earth-like planet yet
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has spotted an Earth-like planet 1,400 light years away.
"Today we are announcing the discovery of an exo-planet that, as far we can tell, is a pretty good close cousin to the Earth and our Sun," John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for Nasa's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said on Friday.
NASA said the planet, Kepler 452b, is about 60 percent larger than Earth. It could have active volcanoes, oceans, sunshine similar to that seen on Earth, twice as much gravity, and a year that lasts 385 days, scientists said.
"This is about the closest so far," Grunsfeld added, describing the new space body as our "closest twin" or "Earth 2.0."
The new world sits in its star's habitable zone, where life could exist because it is neither too hot nor too cold to support liquid water.
NASA says the star that the new planet revolves around is estimated to be about six billion years old - some 1.5 billion years older than the Sun, and therefore raising the momentous possibility that life could have developed on its surface.
The planet was detected by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, which has been on a mission hunting for other worlds like ours since 2009.
NASA added 521 new possible planets to the 4,175 already found by the telescope.
Twelve of the new planet candidates have diameters between one to two times that of Earth and are in the habitable zone of their stars.
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