Scientists Find Most Earth-Like Planet Yet

European astronomers have spotted what they say is the most Earth-like planet yet outside our solar system, with balmy temperatures that could support water and potentially life. They have not directly seen the planet, orbiting a red dwarf star called Gliese 581, but measurements of the star suggest that a planet not much larger than the Earth is pulling on it, the researchers say in a letter to the editor of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. Its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth’s radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky, like our Earth, or covered with oceans, study leader Stephane Udry, of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, said. It appears to have a mass five times that of Earth