New Delhi, July 6 -- Astronomers have found a potentially habitable planet orbiting a star only 25 light-years from Earth - close enough, researchers say, to make it one of the best places yet to look for conditions that might support life beyond our solar system.

The planet, called GJ 3378b, circles a red dwarf in the constellation Camelopardalis. While 25 light-years sounds far, on the scale of the Milky Way it puts the world in our immediate celestial neighbourhood - one of Earth's closest "cosmic neighbours", the team says.

The discovery was led by scientists at the University of California, Irvine and is published in The Astrophysical Journal. GJ 3378b is believed to be a rocky "super-Earth" - larger than our planet but smaller tha...