A world that bears more than a passing similarity to Earth has just been discovered orbiting a star just 40 light-years from the Solar System.

This exoplanet has a very similar radius to our home planet, suggesting a similar rocky composition. Tantalizingly, Gliese-12b, as the exoplanet is named, is at a distance from its host star that could be habitable to life as we know it.

Gliese-12b represents one of the best targets to study whether Earth-size planets orbiting cool stars can retain their atmospheres, a crucial step to advance our understanding of habitability on planets across our galaxy.