NASA’s confirmed that Kepler has discovered the first near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun-like star. This discovery and the introduction of 11 other new small habitable zone candidate planets mark “an enormous milestone in the quest to find another Earth”.
The newly discovered planet – Kepler-452b – is the smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the habitable zone — the area around a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet — of a G2-type star, just like our sun.
