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“We’re taking one small step in answering that question today.”

And with that, astronomers hunting for another Earth announced they have found what may be the closest match yet, a potentially rocky planet circling its star at the same distance as the Earth orbits the Sun, NASA said overnight.

“Until about 20-years ago, we didn’t know the answer to that. Now we have a definitive answer.

“Today we’re announcing the discovery of an exoplanet that as far as we can tell, is a pretty close cousin to the Earth and our sun.

“This is about the closest twin to Earth 2.0 that we’ve found so far, and I really emphasise so far.”

Not only is this planet squarely in the Goldilocks zone — where life could exist because it is neither too hot nor too cold to support liquid water — its star looks like an older cousin of our Sun, the US space agency said, according to Couriermail.com.au.