Azerbaijan National Academy of Science

It’s nestled in in the constellation of Cetus and perpetually loops around its star LHS 1140.

It’s far enough away from the hot star to foster life, but not far enough to be too cold.

But scientists, who spotted the exoplanet using the European Southern Observatory’s telescope, believe it it only receives about half as much sunlight from its star as Earth, however.

This discovery could be even more important than recent finds Proxima b and the solar system Trappist-1.

Doctor Jason Dittmann, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in the US, said: “This is the most exciting exoplanet I’ve seen in the past decade.

“We could hardly hope for a better target to perform one of the biggest quests in science – searching for evidence of life beyond Earth.”

Research team member Dr Nicola Astudillo-Defru, of Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, said: “The present conditions of the red dwarf are particularly favourable – LHS 1140 spins more slowly and emits less high-energy radiation than other similar low-mass stars.”

thesun.co.uk