MSNBC wrote:

Astronomers say they have detected a planet just six and a half times as massive as Earth - at a distance so close its atmosphere could be studied, and with a density so low it's almost certain to have abundant water.

The alien world known as GJ 1214b orbits a red dwarf star one-fifth the size of our own sun, 40 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus, the astronomers reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

"Astronomically speaking, this is on our block," David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, lead author of the study, told reporters this week. "This is a next-door neighbor. For perspective, our own TV signals have already passed beyond the distance of this star."

He said the planet was detected using an array of eight off-the-shelf, 16-inch telescopes equipped with commercially available cameras.

"Since we found the super-Earth using a small ground-based telescope, this means that anyone else with a similar telescope and a good CCD camera can detect it too," Charbonneau said in a news release. "Students around the world can now study this super-Earth."

Super-Earths - planets that are roughly two to 10 times Earth's mass - represent the hottest frontier in the years-long search for worlds beyond our solar system. Planet-hunters reported finding their first transiting super-Earth in February, and earlier this week, other researchers added two more super-Earths to the list.

read MORE: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/12/16/2152989.aspx
Secondary source: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1947868,00.html?cnn=yes

This could turn out to be VERY interesting!

That's...cool I guess =)

I think it's very interesting.
We're probably getting really close to finding real life aliens..

lol, it's going the way of 'Avatar' I think...I'd prefer 'Transformers' though

I heard something simulare.. about a 28 light years far sun with 2 earth like planets. (one five times as big, the other the biggest twenty 25 times as big)

XD close enough to there own sun, so live could be possible.. XD

alien water world...that somehow reminded me of this movie; Mars attacks.
that has like...nothing to do with alien water world
anyway..awesome..I guess..

Mars Attacks is a freakin' epic film!