A new exoplanet candidate has just burst onto the scene, and it may be one of the best alien worlds yet on which to search for extraterrestrial life .

It's just 18 light-years away: a super-Earth named GJ 251c with a minimum mass about 3.84 times that of our own planet. The most exciting part? It's smack-bang in its star's habitable zone – an orbital distance neither too far from nor too close to the star to support life.

"The exoplanet is in the habitable or the 'Goldilocks Zone,' the right distance from its star that liquid water could exist on its surface, if it has the right atmosphere," explains astronomer Suvrath Mahadevan of Pennsylvania State University.

Related: Earth Could Be Even More Habitable. We'd Just Need to Shift Jupiter's Orbit

Scientists are still trying to

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