The discovery of the first Earth-size planet in the "habitable zone" was announced on Dec 5, 2011

"Scientists from NASA's Kepler mission have been busy recently. The team has announced the discovery of Kepler-22b, its first confirmed planet in the habitable zone of its solar system, 600 light years away. They have also been combing through light data captured by the telescope and have released the latest number of planetary candidates team members have identified." For more information about the Kepler Mission, please visit http://www.nasa.gov/kepler http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videog... Related link : http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/... Credit: NASA