The search for conditions that could theoretically support life on other planets is proving to be fairly fruitful, as NASA have announced that they found a few more Earth-like planets.

Using the Keplar telescope, scientists have been able to locate and identify planets that are in the habitable-zone of their nearest star, meaning that they're neither too hot nor too cold to sustain water, at least theoretically. 

The planets are located in what is referred to as the "Goldilocks Zone" (a reference to their temperature, rather than anything to do with porridge), and are likely to be rocky and not gas or ice giants. Depending on which of the study's authors you ask/which definition you use, they have discovered three or four new places that could be similar to Earth.

NASA is officially declaring that there are three planets, while only two are actually rocky, and they are the closest ones to Earth that have been discovered yet. However, while that all sounds promising, they are still quite a ways away from us. According to Mashable, "those two are 500 and 1,100 light years away; a light year is 5.9 trillion miles", so you'd want to have a seriously big travel bag.

The study was presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle yesterday, by Guillermo Torres and Douglas Caldwell, who noted that this is the first step in eventually looking for signs of life on other planets, although that is still a few years away. Torres added that given the number of planets that have currently been discovered that are Earth-like (eight or nine, depending on definition, again) then they may well be fairly common in the cosmos, as the search so far has only been focused on a relatively small part of the galaxy.

The closest planet, Kepler 438-b, is about 12% bigger than Earth, but gets more energy than we do from our sun so might be a bit warmer, and orbits its star a lot more closely than we do, meaning that a year lasts only 35 days, so Christmas shopping would be a lot more stressful. The other planet, Kepler 442-b (another catchy name) is bigger again, about 35% larger than Earth, but gets around the same amount of energy from its star as we do so temperatures may be more pleasant. 

NASA also announced that Kepler has been pretty busy and managed to find its 1000th planet outside our solar system, and while the majority are not like our home planet, that brings the total number of planets discovered to a staggering 1,800, give or take.

Now, all we need is an Interstellar-style ability to travel in to the fifth dimension...

Via Mashable. Main pic via astrobob.areavoices.com