Astrophysicists may be one step closer to finding aliens in outer space! They announced this discovery of Mega Earth at the 224th American Astronomical Society meeting. Mega Earth, more academically known as Kepler-10c, has all the conditions that we have on Earth, making it suitable for life to exist. It is about 560 light-years from Earth, but it circles its own sun like our Earth does. Which means that human-like aliens may be existing on that exoplanet as we speak!

There are a few things that sets this Mega Earth apart from our own dear Earth. First of all, it is 17 times heavier than Earth. It is also reported to be "rocky". This Mega Earth, Kepler-10c is known being one of the biggest Earth-like planets the scientists have discovered so far.

"This is the Godzilla of Earths!" Dimitar Sasselov, director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative, said. "But unlike the movie monster, Kepler-10c has positive implications for life."

"Implications for life" certainly seems to point to the possibility of alien existence!

A few more scientific details of this Mega Earth. It orbits the sun once every 45 days, which may mean that it may be a little too close to the sun for life to thrive on the planet. When NASA's Kepler space telescope first found the planet, it was not able to tell whether the Mega Earth's conditions were too rocky or gaseous for aliens. But the astronomer Xavier Dumusque and his team recently found that Kepler-10c may indeed be hospitable!

"Kepler-10c didn't lose its atmosphere over time. It's massive enough to have held onto one if it ever had it," Dumusque said in a statement. "It must have formed the way we see it now."

"Finding Kepler-10c tells us that rocky planets could form much earlier than we thought," Sasselov said in a statement. "And if you can make rocks, you can make life."

Although this Mega Earth planet is a little too far away from Earth for space explores to take a peek at the planet, the possibility of life beyond planet Earth is exciting! Or scary, depending on whom you ask.