WASHINGTON — Astronomers have spotted a new planet right next to Mars.  And it looks identical to earth!

Astronomers have found a new planet that is identical to Earth – and it’s close by, between the Moon and Mars.  This discovery has stunned the world of astronomy and astrophysics. “We all missed it.  It was always there, right in front of our eyes,” say NASA astronomer Vijay Bannerjee.

“We can’t believe we’ve never seen the planet before,” said astronomer J, P. Thompson o the Carnegie Institute in Washington.  “It’s right there, next to Mars.  And it’s just like us.  It can sustain life.  We have a new Earth!”

Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology’s  Jet Propulsion Laboratory simply had this to say:  “D’oh!”

The new planet looks identical to Earth.  “it’s like we are looking at Earth, from Earth,” said Thompson.  “It’s an exact duplicate.  I wonder if there’s a guy on Goldilocks that looks like me that is looking through a telescope at me and thinking the same thing.  Wild, man, wild!”

Astronomers named the new planet, “Goldilocks” because in the story of Goldilocks and The Three Bears, Goldilocks fell asleep in the bear’s house, and astronomers have fallen asleep for centuries  – completetly missing the obvious.

“I could have told them there was another planet.  I could see it from my porch on the lake.  It’s right there, between the Moon and Mars.  Looks just like us,” said Hank Pauley of Auckland, New Zealand.

The Goldilocks planet, which is only about 2 million miles from Earth, is “not too cold and not too hot, ” said Bannerjee.  “It definitely contains liquid water and it has a proper surface, gravity and atmosphere.

This is Goldilocks- Earth's twin

Finding Goldilocks has put an end to the age-old question:  Are we alone?  The answer:  No, we are not alone, and we can’t believe it’s taken us so long to figure it out.  “Maybe all the telescopes were defective,” said Bannerjee.

“This is the first one I’m truly excited about,” said Penn State University’s Art Waring. He said this planet is a “prime candidate” for harboring life. “I’m already packing my bags.  I can’t wait to buy some property along the “California coast” on the new planet.”

Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic is already planning one-way trips to Goldilocks.  “Once you get there, there’ll be no reason to leave, ” said Branson.

“Man, I hope there’s some hot chicks on that planet,” said Taylor Cooper, an astronaut on the last Discovery mission.  “After determining that there’s life on a planet, that’s always the second question.”   Juliana Rigaux, another astronaut added, “there better be some studs on that planet, too.”

Astronauts have come under fire for not noticing the Earth-like planet when they were in outer-space.  But Buzz Aldrin had this to say though, “I told Neil, I thought I saw a second Earth and he told me to stop dipping into the Scotch.  But I was right.  Dammit, I was right!”

Buzz plans to visit Goldilocks as soon as he can.

Conspiracy theorists are saying that it’s all a hoax.  “There are no planets.  We live in a void, a black hole,”  said Martin Q.  “This is all a government conspiracy to give us hope.  There is no hope.”

Tell that to Goldilocks.

HOUSTON, TX – Amazed scientists have discovered two new planets 1,300 light-years away, and one of them is the exact twin of Earth in every detail.

What’s more, experts believe it may be inhabited – by precise duplicates of every human being now living here on our own planet!

The discovery is thanks to the recent service mission to fix the Hubble space telescope. Noted astronomer Alexander Wolszczan of Pennsylvania State University stunned the world earlier this year with news that he had found two planets about 6 trillion miles from here – the first planets ever known to exist outside our solar system.

At that time, he thought they were both much larger than Earth.

Since then, shocking new photos taken by the Hubble have been leaked to the press by an unnamed NASA source.

The top-secret pictures reveal that the smaller of the two newfound planets is so amazingly like ours that, when it’s shown side by side with pictures of Earth, even the most knowledgeable astronomer can’t tell them apart.

“It’s chilling,” says Dr. Raymond Tufts, renowned astronomer and foremost authority on the solar system. “The green-blue coloration of the new planet indicated an atmosphere composed of the same mixture of gasses that surround our own.

“It’s the same distance from its sun. Even the shorelines of its continents are formed in the exact shape of ours.

“It’s as if God were holding a great mirror up to Earth from across the universe.”

The Hubble Telescope’s magnification isn’t powerful enough to show any inhabitants on the new world, but experts agree that the planet is capable of supporting human life.

And some respected authorities go even further, claiming that each of us has a perfect duplicate of himself – working, playing and interacting with others on the mysterious planet.

“For thousands of years, great philosophical and religious writings have referred to a ‘parallel universe’,” says Dr. Yale Holtzer, a renowned author and philosopher who has lectured in leading universities throughout the U.S.

“But there’s never been any concrete evidence until now. Since ancient times, many sages and mystics have believed that you and I have a carbon copy of ourselves, existing in the same time frame but in another world.

“But maybe your ‘twin’ has made different decisions in his life than you’ve made in yours, causing him or her to learn different lessons. If we could somehow meet these people there’s no end to what we could learn about ourselves.”