Gliese 581 d and Gliese 581 e

This discovery is absolutely extraordinary. Nearly 350 planets have been found outside our solar system, but so far nearly every one of them was found to be extremely unlikely to harbor life. In the search for Earth-like planets, astronomers zeroed on two places that look awfully familiar to home. One is close to the right size. The other is in the right place. European researchers said they not only found the smallest exoplanet ever, called Gliese 581 e, but realized that a neighboring planet discovered earlier, Gliese 581 d, was in the prime habitable zone for potential life.Gliese 581 e is only 1.9 times the size of Earth while previous planets found outside our solar system are closer to the size of massive Jupiter, which NASA says could swallow more than 1,000 Earths.Both Gliese 581 d and Gliese 581 e are located in constellation Libra and orbit around Gliese 581.