A team of astronomers from the Spanish Research Council (CSIC), working with Dr. Jean-Philippe Beaulieu from University College London (UCL), made a significant discovery of another super-sized Earth-like planet found in the Leo constellation. The planet lies 30 light years from Earth and has a mass five times greater than that of our planet.

Despite the massive size of the newly discovered planet, it is the smallest found to date among the three other super-Earth planets. This discovery may open a new path which should lead to other smaller planets in the near future, with the goal of eventually finding worlds that share similar characteristics with Earth.

Dubbed GH 436c, the planet boasts a relatively longer rotation and orbit around its host star compared to Earth. A full day on the planet would roughly take around 22 Earth days. Beaulieu had his own input regarding the new planet and had this to say:

This is the fourth super-Earth planet discovered. This planet is the hot twin of the frozen super-Earth (OGLE-2005-BLG-390lb) we discovered by microlensing two years ago. Other previously discovered planets of this class are the two hot super-Earths Gl 581b and Gl 876d detected by their Doppler wobble.

Based on some of the current models of similar super-Earth planets, GH 436c is predicted to be a rocky type and has a radius of around 50 percent larger than Earth.