Earth-like planets may contain life

Astronomers discovered that an Earth-like planet is only 219 light-years away, which could become a target for missions that seek alien life.

The new planet, named Kepler-1649, was discovered by astronomers through the Kepler space telescope of the US Aerospace Agency, Phys.org, on April 7. The planet is only slightly larger than Earth and orbits a low-temperature star named M5V, which is about one-fifth the diameter of the Sun.

Kepler-1649 is slightly larger in size than Earth.(Photo: Danielle Futselaar).

According to the researchers, their kinship planet close to Venus will be an important candidate to find life in the next space missions. Its trajectory is 2.3 times the amount of light from its parent star to the planet. In theory, the star lies in an area suitable for life to form and develop.

The findings also provide an insight into the nature of the planet around M dwarfs , small, cold and relatively common dwarfs in the universe. "Planets like Kepler-1649b will be the target of choice for atmospheric and habitability research, " the team wrote in a report published in the journal Astrophysics.

Although Earth and Venus evolved to similar sizes and densities, scientists still do not know which factors make the two planets clearly differentiate in the atmosphere. According to Isabel Angelo, a scientist at SETI Institute, studying Venus-like planets is very important to understand the region's boundaries that may exist around the dwarf M.