Astronomers have announced the discovery of eight new planets orbiting their stars in the so-called “Goldilocks zone.” The planets are neither too hot nor too cold for water and possibly life to exist.
The discovery doubles the number of known planets that are close in size to the Earth and believed to be in the habitable zones of the stars they orbit.
Two of the eight are the most Earth-like of any known planets found so far outside our solar system, astronomers told the 225th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, Washington.
The lead author, Guillermo Torres of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics said: “Most of these planets have a good chance of being rocky, like Earth.” [myad]
