It has been reported that astronomers analyzing data from NASA's Kepler space telescope are saying that they have found the closest Earth-like "twin" orbiting another star. Kepler-452b is the name given to the planet, which is approximately 60% larger in diameter than our planet. It orbits around a sun-like star that is located nearly 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus.

It circles at approximately the same distance as Earth. A year here is of 385 days, only 20 days longer than Earth. This indicates that it possibly gets the same amount of sunshine.

John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said that they are making announcement regarding the closest twin to Earth 2.0 that has been found in the data set until now.

As per reports, it becomes the closest analogue to Earth ever discovered as a result of many factors linked to this planet, together with the type of star, distance of the planet from it and its size.

According to Jon Jenkins, who is leading the Kepler data analysis at NASA's Ames Research Center in Northern California and led the discovery of the new planet, "That's considerable time and opportunity for life to arise somewhere on its surface or in its ocean, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet".

Much information is not available regarding this distant planet and it is still not clear that exactly how much mass it is holding. It is also not clear that exactly how it originated in addition to composition of its atmosphere.