New | Two new earth-like planets 'capable of hosting life' discovered by Nasa telescope

Earth has a few more almost-twin planets outside our solar system, raising tantalising possibilities in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Astronomers announced yesterday that they have confirmed three or four more planets that are about the same size as the earth and are in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold “Goldilocks Zone” for liquid water to form.

These planets are likely to be rocky like the earth, and not gas giants or ice worlds. They get about the same heat from their star as we get from the sun, according to the latest results from Nasa’s planet-hunting Kepler telescope.

The closest to our planet, called Kepler 438-b, is only 12 per cent larger than earth and gets about 40 per cent more energy from its star than we do from the sun, so it would probably be warmer, said study lead author Guillermo Torres, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics.

It tightly circles a small cooler red star with its year lasting only 35 earth days and the sun in its sky would be red, not yellow.

It may hot, a toast 140 degrees, but “there are bacteria on Earth that live very comfortably in those temperatures, no problem,” Torres said.