Now a newfound exoplanet announced today  in the journal Nature, and discovered by a member of the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research  at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, offers scientists one of the best chances to truly know an extraterrestrial planet. Called GJ 1132b, it crosses the face of a nearby red dwarf star only 40 light-years away. These so-called transits—mini-eclipses, really—have allowed researchers to gauge GJ 1132b's size as just 1.2 times that of Earth's. Other measurements have revealed it boasts a similar density to our rocky planet. All told, GJ 1132b is the closest transiting, Earth-size, rocky planet ever spotted.
Zachory Berta-Thompson – is a Torres Fellow for Exoplanetary Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research  (MKI). Berta-Thompson is the lead author of the new Nature paper and is part of the MEarth Project , which monitors nearby red dwarfs for exoplanet transits and pinpointed GJ 1132b.
Elisabeth Newton – is a co-author of the Nature paper, a member of the MEarth Project and a graduate student at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics .
Rory Barnes – is a research assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrobiology Program at the University of Washington . He is also member of NASA's Virtual Planetary Lab  that simulates exoplanetary environments to learn how we might remotely discern the presence of life through our existing scientific instruments.
TKF: Oxygen, in the presence of other gases such as methane, could be a sign of biological activity on a planet. In a Kavli Hangout  last year about the search for signs of life in exoplanets' atmospheres, Zach said: "In the next decade we are just barely getting to the edge of being able to detect something like molecular oxygen in a planet’s atmosphere," and with the "wind at our backs we may just be able to . . . find the right planet, meaning it's the right size and the right temperature, and around one of the very closest very small stars so it’s easy to observe.’ It sounds like GJ 1132b is what you were talking about, Zach?