New planet found in Goldilocks zone

French scientists claim to have found the first planet outside our solar system with the potential to support Earth-like life. 

Modelling of planet Gliese 581d shows it has the potential to be warm and wet enough to nurture Earth-like life, they said.

It orbits a red dwarf star called Gliese 581, located around 20 light years from Earth, which makes it one of our closest neighbours.

Gliese 581d orbits on the outer fringes of the star's Goldilocks zone, where it is not so hot that water boils away, nor so cold that water is perpetually frozen.

Instead, the temperature is just right for water to exist in liquid form.

"With a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere - a likely scenario on such a large planet - the climate of Gliese 581d is not only stable against collapse but warm enough to have oceans, clouds and rainfall," France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said in a press release.

For budding travellers, though, Gliese 581d would "still be a pretty strange place to visit", CNRS said.
"The denser air and thick clouds would keep the surface in a perpetual murky red twilight, and its large mass means surface gravity would be around double that on Earth."