According to US researchers, a planet which is about 1,200 light-years away from Earth and 40 per cent larger than its size may be habitable. Kepler-62f, which is in the direction of the constellation Lyra, is within the range of planets that are likely to be rocky and possibly could have oceans.

"At that size, Kepler-62f is within the range of planets that are likely to be rocky and possibly could have oceans," said Aomawa Shields, lead author and an astrophysics postdoctoral fellow.

“We found there are multiple atmospheric compositions that allow it to be warm enough to have surface liquid water. This makes it a strong candidate for a habitable planet,” said Aomawa Shields from UCLA.

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered the planetary system that includes Kepler-62f in 2013 and has identified Kepler-62f as the outermost of five planets orbiting a star that is smaller and cooler than the Sun.

Carbon dioxide makes up 0.04 percent of the earth’s atmosphere. Since, Kepler-62f is much farther away from its star than Earth is from the Sun, it would need to have dramatically more carbon dioxide to be warm enough to maintain liquid water on its surface and to keep from freezing.

The team of scientists ran computer simulations and found many scenarios that allow it to be habitable, assuming different amounts of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere. The scientists made their calculations of the shape of the planet's possible orbital path using an existing computer model called HNBody. The research was published online in the journal Astrobiology.

"This will help us understand how likely certain planets are to be habitable over a wide range of factors, for which we don't yet have data from telescopes," she noted.

By Premji