An international research team led by the Yunnan Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth, designated Kepler-725c, orbiting a Sun-like star. The planet is located within the habitable zone and has a mass approximately ten times that of Earth.

This super-Earth orbits a G9V-type host star named Kepler-725. While the star shares a similar spectral type with the Sun, it is significantly younger—only 1.6 billion years old—and exhibits more intense magnetic activity on its surface compared to our Sun. Kepler-725c lies within the star’s habitable zone, a region where conditions may allow for the presence of liquid water, which is considered a key prerequisite for the emergence of Earth-like life. The planet completes an orbit around its host star in approximately 207.5 days, which is relatively close to Earth’s orbital period.

“A super-Earth located in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star suggests the possibility of carbon-based life similar to that on Earth,” explained Dr. Gu Shenghong, a researcher at the Yunnan Observatories. “It is situated at a distance nearly equivalent to 160 million times the distance from the Earth to the Sun.”

This research was published on June 3 in the prestigious international journal Nature Astronomy. It marks the first time globally that a planet in the habitable zone of a solar-type star has been discovered using the Transit Timing Variation (TTV) inversion method.

Editor: LQQ