In general, we’re pretty much over announcing every new planetary discovery. There are just too many of them, and it’s starting to feel like saying “Hey that star has a planet” is no more exciting than saying “Hey, the Mississippi is flooding” here in Illinois, where the river is over flood stage as often as it isn’t. Sure, there is a weather alert, but does anyone really still care? But just like sometimes the Mississippi is so high everyone needs to sit up and take notice, sometimes a newly discovered world is so special, we need to mention it here. Proxima Centauri makes it in for being the closest star and having a really cool historical story. Now, Kepler 160 and its planet KOI-456.04 are going to also make headlines. In this case, it’s because we actually found a system I’m comfortable calling a “Fat Earth” system. In a new paper in Astronomy & Astrophysics, a team led by Rene Heller announced there is an 85% chance there is a two Earth-mass planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star. With a distance of 3140 ly, we’re not going there anytime soon, but I’d be satisfied with confirmation of this world and knowledge that a fat-Earth is out there giving big beautiful earthy possibilities. 

More Information

Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research press release 

 “Transit Least-Squares Survey III. A 1.9 R_Earth Transit Candidate in the Habitable Zone of Kepler-160 and a Nontransiting Planet Characterized by Transit-Timing Variations,” René Heller et al., 2020 June, Astronomy & Astrophysics (Preprint on arxiv.org)