According to reports, Kepler mission of NASA has confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” close to a sun-like star. Reports say that this marks a step closer to finding an Earth 2.0 and is a big achievement in this direction.

NASA first made an announcement regarding the introduction of a number of other new habitable zone candidate planets and scientists then came up with the new finding.

The planet, Kepler-452b, is reported to be the smallest found orbiting in the habitable zone so far. The habitable zone is the region near a star where liquid water could collect on the surface of a planet that is circling a G2-type star.

According to John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, “On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun”.

He added that the new finding will help approach an Earth 2.0 further. When it comes to diameter, Kepler-452b is 60% larger than Earth and is thought to be super-Earth-size planet. According to NASA, so far, they haven’t found the mass and composition, however according to previous research, planets that are the size of Kepler-452b are likely to be rocky.

Kepler-452b is reported to be larger than Earth, however its 385-day orbit is just 5% longer than Earth’s. It is also 5% further from Kepler-452 than Earth is from our Sun.