LIKE a bright but distracted child, maybe a slightly frightened one, who can’t concentrate long enough at exam time to realise their potential, we seem unable to focus properly on, or even process honestly, myriad warnings about how our relentlessly cavalier attitude towards the environment will eventually change our world utterly — and not by any means for the better.

A new kind of rocky planet — dubbed a mega-Earth — has been discovered in a distant star system.

JUST as imagined in the TV series Star Trek, the galaxy really could be filled with Earth-like planets capable of supporting life, new research suggests.

Nasa’s planet-hunting telescope, Kepler, rocketed into space early today on a historic voyage to track down other Earths in a faraway patch of the Milky Way.

SMALL rocky planets like Earth may outnumber Jupiter-sized “gas giants” by three-to-one, a recent discovery suggests.