Search for alien life expands further out of the galaxy as new criteria proposed

The phrase 'E.T phone home' became synonymous with alien life in popular culture.

And now it has emerged an alien 'home' could be further away from the Earth-like planet criteria than was previously thought.

Astronomers want to expand the habitability zone of a planet to include a larger set of criteria.

Life beyond our galaxy: If the search criteria changed it could lead to astronomers getting closer to discovering alien life

In the 1970s the concept of a habitable zone was coined by astronomer Michael Hart.

He claimed the Earth was the only possible home for life in the galaxy as this habitable zone, or the Goldilocks zone, is the area where a planet is just hot enough for liquid water to exist on the surface.

But astronomers report that there are already more than 700 exoplanets discovered with only a few in the habitable zone.

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