A new ‘super-Earth’ has been discovered that could have a life-supporting climate and water. A team has now published updated evidence for a planet that could be the most Earth-like yet. This means it is closer to Venus than Earth in the amount of energy it absorbs from its star. But as soon as they made the announcement, doubts began to surface. Since it is located only 20.3 light-years away - in the Constellation Libra - astronomers should be able to resolve some of these questions in the future, with direct spectroscopic observations of the planet's atmosphere. The newly discovered planet could be similar to the much more distant Kepler-186f, shown here in an artist's rendering. "Near" is of course a very relative term. In pictures: Pro-Trump protesters storm Capitol, How six brothers - and their lions - terrorised a town, Streets of Beijing back to life after Covid. How hospitable the planet is Like are we the only planet that can support life. Astronomers say they have discovered a plant, similar to earth, that could support life. A TOP 20 ‘most Earth-like’ planets list has been sifted out of the more than 4000 distant worlds so far discovered. Scientists find 3 Earth-sized planets that may support life Published Mon, May 2 2016 2:19 PM EDT Updated Tue, May 3 2016 8:11 AM EDT Robert Ferris @in/robert-ferris-a482061/ @RobertoFerris Credit: NBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Capitol riots: Who broke into the building? One of a system of five planets, it is the immediate neighbour of Gliese 581g. Whether you believe in God or not, another planet that can support life is awesome! Another Super-Earth, with a mass 3.6 times that of our planet, HD85512b orbits on the inner margins of its habitable zone. Current understanding of physical limitations mean it would take at least 14 years to make the journey to Wolf 1061c, and we would have to invent light-speed travel first. If future generations did make it to Wolf 1061c, they'd find an oversize rocky planet circling a star that's dimmer and smaller than our sun. With a radius 2.1 times that of Earth, Kepler 22b is bigger than some others in the list of five. Of these, Kepler 22b is The ESI measures characteristics of exoplanets on a scale from zero to one, with one being identical to Earth. This is the closest planet yet that could support life beyond our solar system. Astronomers have found a nearby "super-Earth" exoplanet that may be capable of supporting life as we know it. Still, this planet is a much closer neighbor than most other potentially habitable exoplanets spotted so far, which tend to be hundreds or thousands of light-years away. Capitol riots: A visual guide to the storming of Congress, has detected more than 2,300 candidate exoplanets, may depend on how much cloud cover it has, computer simulations of the exoplanet's atmosphere. Is earth that powerful that life can only form on earth. Astronomers do not yet know for sure whether it has a predominantly gaseous, rocky or liquid composition. Earth is the only planet that can hold life because of the basic elements that are present on Earth; ie. using a greater amount of data to provide more promising evidence for its existence. But this is not necessarily bad for its prospects for hosting biology: mission scientist Natalie Batalha said that if Kepler 22b were mostly ocean with a small rocky core, "it's not beyond the realm of possibility that life could exist in such an ocean". This would allow for the presence on the planet's surface of liquid water - one of the pre-requisites for life. In our Solar system - No planets are likely to support life - apart from Earth of course. We delete comments that violate our policy, which we encourage you to read. But can we really single ... that can support a ... if some people could eventually live off planet Earth. Instead, it is a serious candidate for an ocean planet, according to one of its discoverers, Stephane Udry. So what do we know about these five Earth-like planets, and how likely is it that they could support life? , devised by a team including Dirk Schulze-Makuch from Washington State University and Abel Mendez from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) in Arecibo, shows that Gliese 581g is the most Earth-like planet discovered to date. "It is fascinating to look out at the vastness of space and think a star so very close to us -- a near neighbor -- could host a habitable planet," Wright says. VideoStreets of Beijing back to life after Covid, 'New York is not dead, but it is on life support', Rapper Pa Salieu wins the BBC's Sound of 2021, Six tips for success from the richest person on the planet, BBC Culture: Why being creative is good for you. It's probable, they say, that life could have arisen on at least some of the billions of planets thought to exist in our galaxy alone -- just as it did here on planet Earth. .css-14iz86j-BoldText{font-weight:bold;}It's one of the big questions: Are we alone on this blue marble or is there life elsewhere in the cosmos? suggest that under some scenarios, greenhouse gases would allow surface temperatures to remain above 0C, allowing water to stay liquid. But The new study could have significant implications for the way we search for alien life . To shed some light, astronomers are searching for habitable worlds circling far-off stars. This is a list of potentially habitable exoplanets.The list is based on estimates of habitability by the Habitable Exoplanets Catalog (HEC), and data from the NASA Exoplanet Archive.The HEC is maintained by the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo.. 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