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At their closest, these planets each have truly spectacular views in their skies, that planet closet to the parent star – Kepler-36b – a solid body 1.5 times as big as Earth, though four time as heavy. Kepler-36c, on the other hand, is three times Earth size but only double the weight, and shrouded in gas, like Neptune, though the smaller one is not.

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As ever more planets are discovered circling distant stars, the odds of there being life-supporting worlds increases exponentially.

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So far Keplar telescope has discovered more than 1200 planets by mapping them at the rate of a new one every few days at present. Based on those findings there approximately 50 billion planets in the Milky Way Galaxy and even that is a conservative estimate.

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Will we get there this century?

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A hug milestone in the quest by astronomers to discover Earth-like planets outside our solar system took a whole new step this week. The smallest exoplanet yet has been discovered, that lies beyond our solar system.