Washington – The hunt for potential life in outer space has taken a step forward – an international team of researchers has discovered the first Earth-sized planet within the “habitable zone” of another star.
The exoplanet dubbed Kepler-186f was first spotted by scientists using Nasa’s Kepler telescope, according to research published on Thursday in the US journal Science.
The exoplanet, located some 500 light years from Earth, orbits in what is seen as the sweet spot around its star: Not too close and not too far, so it could have liquid water, considered a crucial component to possibly hosting life.
“The discovery of Kepler-186f is a significant step toward finding worlds like our planet Earth,” said Paul Hertz, Nasa’s Astrophysics Division director at the agency’s headquarters in Washington…
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