Earth like planets are likely to be more plentiful and much closer than thought after the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics found that six percent of red dwarf stars have habitable, Earth-sized planets.

Since red dwarfs are the most common stars in our galaxy, the closest Earth-like planet could be just 13 light-years away.

The discovery was made using publicly available data from NASA's Kepler space telescope.

Harvard astronomer and lead author Courtney Dressing ...