28-07-2015 07:00

Scientists used NASA’s powerful Kepler telescope and they found a planet. It is about 60 per cent bigger than Earth, and it is located 1,400 light years away.

The planet is now known as Kepler-452. It circulates a star at a distance which is similar to Earth’s orbit. The planet’s star is similar to the sun. It is only older.

The planet is special because it is cool enough to have liquid water on the surface. Therefore, life could be possible on such a planet.

Difficult words: telescope (a thing which is used for watching the space), orbit (the way which a planet travels around a star), liquid (“normal”; not gas, not ice).

You can read the original story and watch the video in the Level 3 section.