the.com/kepler 452b
Earth's annoying older cousin orbiting a star 430 light-years away, probably lonely.
means An exoplanet discovered in 2015 that's roughly Earth-sized, orbits in its star's habitable zone, and remains humanity's best candidate for another world that might support life.
from Named after Johannes Kepler (the astronomer who unlocked planetary motion) plus the Kepler Space Telescope that spotted it in data from 2009. The B denotes it's the second object orbiting Kepler-452, the parent star.
distance & light430 light-years away; light from it left before Columbus crossed the Atlantic
the host starKepler-452 is 6 billion years old, older and larger than our Sun
size comparison1.6 times Earth's radius; still small enough to possibly be rocky
orbit goldilocksTakes 385 days to orbit, falls squarely in the habitable zone
for instance
kepler 452b itself — NASA's Kepler mission detected it via transit method, July 2015
kepler 186f — Similar Earth-sized competitor, confirmed five months earlier in April 2015