Discovery of earth-like planets:
“…But the most
intriguing exoplanets are those few dozen that are believed to be Earth-like:
rocky planets, roughly the size of our own or slightly larger, that orbit their
stars at a distance that is neither too close nor too far, in the potentially
habitable Goldilocks Zone, where the climate could be temperate and any water
could be liquid. Last year, with great fanfare, Nasa announced the discovery of
Kepler-452b, “a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our
sun,” fourteen hundred light-years away, in the constellation Cygnus. Today, in
the journal Nature, an international team of astronomers has announced the
discovery of yet another. Called Proxima b, it orbits Proxima Centauri, the
nearest star to our sun. Only 4.3 light-years away, Proxima b is tantalizingly
close by—as close to us as any extrasolar planet is ever likely to be.”
Related:
http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2016/08/25/new-planet-may-help-silicon-valley-live-its-cliche/