New Exoplanet Has Earth-Like Climate

For the first time, a planet with temperatures like earth's has been discovered orbiting a distant star. While hundreds of exoplanets—planets orbiting suns outside our solar system—are already known, this one, named Corot-9b, is the first with a temperate climate that can be studied in depth, leading the scientists who discovered it to hail Corot-9b as a "Rosetta stone in exoplanet research."

"Corot-9b is the first exoplanet that really does resemble planets in our solar system," one of its discoverers said, and so it will be critical in the search for life beyond our solar system. Corot-9b is 1,500 light years from earth in a constellation called Serpens, passes in front of its sun once every 95 days, and has temperatures ranging from -4 to 320 degrees, the Independent reports.
(More exoplanet stories.)