NASA Found a Super Earth

A NASA telescope orbiting our planet has spotted an intriguing super-Earth — a world some 30 to 70 percent bigger than Earth.

This rocky planet is in another solar system 137 light-years away, which in the vastness of space is considered relatively close (a light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles). The exoplanet, called TOI-715 b, is about 1.5 times the size of Earth. And, crucially, this world orbits inside the habitable, or "Goldilocks," zone.

"That’s the distance from the star that could give the planet the right temperature for liquid water to form on its surface," NASA explained on its website. "Several other factors would have to line up, of course, for surface water to be present, especially having a suitable atmosphere."

TOI-715 b orbits quite close to its star (each orbit lasts just 19 days) — but scientists don't think its a hellish, scorching world, like some other exoplanets. That's because its star is a "red dwarf," which is both cooler and smaller than our medium-sized star, the sun.   READ MORE...