A NEWLY discovered rocky planet may be the most Earth-like yet found in another solar system, scientists believe.
Kepler-186f is almost exactly the same size as the Earth and occupies its parent star's "habitable zone", where temperatures are mild enough to allow liquid surface water.
If the planet has lakes or oceans, it would increase the chances of extraterrestrial life evolving there.
But anything living on the world may have to withstand extra large doses of radiation from its active sun.
The find is described in the journal Science as "a landmark on the road to discovering habitable planets".
Kepler-186 is an "M-dwarf" star 795 light years away that is smaller and cooler than the Sun.
It is orbited by a family of five known planets. Kepler-186f, the latest to be discovered, is the outermost.
Kepler-186f is just 0.1 times bigger than the Earth and while habitable zone planets have been identified around other stars, none of them so closely match the Earth in size.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article