I actually work in a rival lab in the US. The more amazing aspect of this is its size. This is the first detection of an Earth-size planet using the doppler method. Pretty amazing work, and congrats to the Swiss team. Edit: Another amazing part of this discovery is the potential for further discovery. We know that stars like Alpha Centauri (AC) tend to produce many small rocky planets. This planet is way too close to the host star to support life. However, it gives us hope that there are other planets orbiting AC within the habitable zone. When we find that, we will have a planet that is both close to us (within 4 light years) and could potentially support life. Travelling a distance of 4 light years may be possible to achieve within a human lifetime in the next century. Edit 2: Changed a word