In July, NASA announced that they had discovered an exoplanet called Kepler-452b, later dubbed "Earth 2.0" due to its similarity to our home planet. Kepler 452b is a rocky planet orbiting a G-class star called Kepler 452 in the constellation of Cygnus. Scientists were excited about its similarity to Earth because, as far as we know, Earth is the only place in the universe where life flourishes. It therefore makes sense to start the search for extraterrestrial life by looking for the familiar. The planet is located right in the Goldilocks Zone around its host star, that is, the region in which it is neither too hot nor too cold for life to survive. It could also potentially have liquid water, another ingredient we know is essential to life. Even if Kepler-452b isn't home to little green men, some scientists reckon it would make a good second home for the human race ... if it weren't so far away. At 1,400 light years from Earth, it'd be one hell of a commute. So we either would have to develop some kind of FTL technology to reach it, or set out on some kind of generation ship.
