European astronomers reported the smallest planet yet spotted in the "habitable zone" of a nearby sun-like star on Wednesday.
About the size of Neptune, the planet circles the star HD 69830, some 41 light-years away in the southern sky (one light-year equals about 5.9 trillion miles.)
Two other slightly smaller planets orbit closer to the star, reports the discovery team led by Christophe Lovis of Switzerland's Geneva Observatory.
Detections of the planets "suggest that the search for habitable planets might be easier than assumed," says Harvard astronomer David Charbonneau, in a commentary accompanying the report in Thursday's Nature magazine. The habitable zone planet is not Earth-like, says Lovis, likely cloaked in a high-pressure hydrogen atmosphere.
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