Finding the New Earth Join astronomers in a race to find a planet that can sustain life. Amid all the space in the universe, is there another world like ours? Astronomers studying a nearby star say they've found the first potentially habitable planet-likely a rocky place with an atmosphere, temperate regions, and crucially, liquid water, considered vital for life as we know it. Other extrasolar planets have been called Earthlike, but, astronomer Paul Butler assured, 'this is really the first Goldilocks planet'-not too hot, not too cold.