It is less than twice the size of Earth and receives a similar amount and type of light from its sun-like star.

The planet candidate is also orbiting at a distance that places it within the habitable zone of the star, where the surface temperature of the planet could support liquid water — and the potential for life.

But it's the combination of this less-than-double the size of the Earth planet and its solar-type host star that make it so special and familiar," Heller said.

All of the factors of the way this potential planet interacts with its host star mean that conditions on the surface could be similar to Earth — but that all depends on if it has an atmosphere.

The researchers said if the planet had a stable atmosphere with mild warming from a greenhouse effect similar to what Earth experiences, the average temperature would be similar to our planet's mean global temperature.

Finding exoplanets

The researchers discovered the two additional potential planets in the Kepler-160 system when they searched through Kepler data using a detailed model of variations of star brightness.