A newly discovered planet sits in the habitable zone of its star, where temperatures are right for liquid water if the atmosphere is appropriate. Based on the available data, GJ 251c is thought most likely to be a “super-Earth”, a rocky planet somewhat larger and more massive than Earth, but a sub-Neptune can’t be entirely ruled out. Best of all, it’s less than 20 light-years away, offering better prospects for telescope observations than a number of previous favored targets that are mostly 40 light-years away at least. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Humanity recently passed the 6,000 mark for planets discovered around other stars. While this has been great for the insights provided into population dynamics, most of

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