Photo from T. Pyle/ NASA/ SETI Institute

Scientists just located a planet startlingly similar to Earth, which gives them hope that it may even be home to life.

Kepler-186f is slightly (10 percent) larger than Earth and falls in in the “Goldilocks” zone, meaning it’s the perfect distance from its star to harbor liquid water and possibly life.

The Kepler telescope, which located this new planet, has spotted planets that are Earth-sized and planets that are in the habitable zone in the past, but it has never found a planet with both qualities. Until now.

Scientists believe that Kepler-186f is rocky like Earth and not gassy, like Jupiter.

If we do discover life on this planet, we won’t be able to meet them for quite some time. Kepler-186f is in the Milky Way galaxy, but it’s a whopping 500 light years away. For reference, it would take Voyager 1 about 18,000 years to travel one light year. However, we could still spy on our new friends from afar. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute at NASA has started looking for the presence of emissions from the planet, which could indicate that it contains extraterrestrial life.

Another exciting thing about this discovery is that the planet is orbiting an M dwarf, or red dwarf, star. These stars are far more common than stars like our sun, accounting for 70 percent of the total stars in our galaxy. Because of this, the chances of finding more Earth-sized planets go up.

For now, Kepler-186f holds the record for the planet most similar to Earth. However, this is “not a record we wish to keep,” Eliza Quintana of SETI said in an interview with CNN.

And, realistically speaking, this probably isn’t a record that will be kept. Kepler is unveiling more and more Earth-sized planets at a super fast rate. Scientists estimate that there could be billions of these planets waiting to be discovered in our galaxy alone.

But for now, it’s a waiting game. As technology improves, spotting Earth-sized planets is getting easier. What once seemed impossible is now becoming routine, and the next big step will be the hunt for life.