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Most Earth-like planet ever spotted by scientists

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An artist’s rendering of what Kepler 438b may look like.

Harvard scientists have discovered the most earth-like planet ever in the Lyra constellation, some 470 light years away.

Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) made the announcement at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle on Tuesday.

Kepler 438b is slightly bigger than Earth and is in the orbit of an orange dwarf star which gives it around 40 percent more warmth than the sun gives our planet.

In accordance to Kepler’s size, it is probably a rocky world and its distance from its star puts it somewhere in the “Goldilocks” zone, the habitable zone where the temperature permits water in the liquid state.

Flowing water and a rocky surface are both two of the main factors scientists take into accordance when assessing if a planet may be hospitable to life.

During their announcement, the scientists said they had also discovered seven other planets that are in the habitable zones of their stars.

All of the planets were found with Nasa’s Kepler space telescope which spots planets as they cross in front of their stars, causing the light detected by the telescope to weaken periodically by a very small amount.

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