Just how hospitable to life is Kepler-186f, the planet that has NASA freaking out? Well, you couldn’t breathe there, for one thing. But, other than that, it’s the most habitable planet NASA has yet discovered. It exists in its sun’s “Goldilocks Zone”—neither too hot nor too cold for life—and could very well have liquid water. It’s about ten percent larger than our own planet and just a little further away from its sun, which might mean it’s a touch cooler but given our own rising temperatures, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. All in all, it’s unusually similar to our own chuck of the universe. “This is a really profound discovery. It’s a major milestone,” Tom Barclay, a member of NASA’s Ames Research Center, told NPR.
That said, at 500 light-years away from earth, it’s not exactly a day trip, so there’s no need to go packing any bags just yet …
