A new discovery has been made by NASA, which has announced that it has spotted an Earth-like planet 40 light years away, a place that could be home to human life in the future.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, the exoplanet, called “Gliese 12b”, is slightly smaller than our planet and has an estimated surface temperature of 41 degrees Celsius.

🪐 DISCOVERY 🔭

A Venus-sized exoplanet with an ‘Earth-like temperature’ has been spotted just 40 light-years away from us.

The potentially-habitable world, named Gliese 12 b, orbits its host star every 12.8 days and has an estimated surface temperature of 42°C (107°F).

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— Royal Astronomical Society (@RoyalAstroSoc) May 23, 2024

Astronomers now plan to analyse Gliese 12b to determine whether it has an Earth-like atmosphere, which could reveal whether the exoplanet can maintain the right temperature for water to form on its surface – a necessary condition to support life.

Gliese 12b has been described as the “closest, most temperate Earth-sized world to date” and is a candidate for future exploration by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

An international team of astronomers used NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) to clarify the exact location of Gliese 12b.

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“Gliese 12b represents one of the best targets to study whether Earth-sized planets orbiting cool stars can maintain their atmospheres, a critical step in our understanding of habitability on planets across our galaxy,” said Shishir Dholakia, a PhD student at the Centre for Astrophysics at the University of South Queensland in Australia.

“Because Gliese 12b lies between Earth and Venus in temperature, its atmosphere could teach us a lot about the habitability paths that planets follow as they evolve,” he added.