Two new super-Earths have been discovered recently. A super-Earth is a planet larger than Earth, but smaller than Neptune, and probably a rocky planet. The planets are orbiting Kapteyn's Star, a red dwarf star. It's smaller and cooler than the Sun. It's also 13 light years away from us, which is close in galactic terms.
One of the planets, Kepteyn-b, is five times Earth's mass and is also in the habitable zone of its star. The habitable zone of a star is the region around a star in which water could be liquid. Kapteyn-c is probably too far away from the star for this to occur.
But what has most excited astronomers about the discovery is that Kapteyn's Star is a very old star, over twice the age of the Sun. Obviously, we don't have enough information to know if Kapteyn-b really is habitable and if so, whether there is life there. But it does mean that life has had a long time to get started on Kapteyn-b, and potentially a long time to evolve.
