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Sensing that he might be edging into tenuous territory, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama dodged a question in a Democratic presidential debate about whether he believed there was life on other planets. He opted for a foolproof non-answer: “I believe there is life on Earth.”

If the debate had been held now, Obama might have been able to give a more meaningful answer. A group of astronomers has announced the discovery of a fifth planet in a planetary system remarkably similar to our own. The planets orbit a sun-sized star 41 light-years away in the constellation Cancer. The newly discovered planet is a gas giant, 45 times the mass of Earth, orbiting its star every 260 days.

The significance: This planet orbits in the “habitable zone,” far enough from its sun to have moderate-enough temperatures, between freezing and boiling, to allow for liquid water and thus the possibility of life.

The technology doesn’t exist yet to discover rocky Earth-like planets, only the gas giants, but clearly such planets exist and so may moons orbiting the gas giants capable of sustaining life.

With 200 billion stars and billions of solar systems in our galaxy alone, Obama could have safely answered the question about life on other planets by saying it’s increasingly likely that there i