Potential earth-like planet discovered

Here's an image from the NASA.gov site of the earth and moon taken by the voyager probe as it sped away.

Apparently scientists may have found another similar planet around a nearby star. I find it incredible that scientists have the means to make discoveries like this, but apparently a red dwarf star (Gliese 581) about 20.5 light years away has a potentially earthlike planet around it.

Calculations based on planetary formation models anticipate that the planet should have an atmosphere and may likely have water (based on prevailing planetary formation models). Temperature may be potentially similar to earth, although a thick atmosphere could make it hotter.

It's diameter is probably 1.5 times that of earth, and gravity would be about 1.6 times that of earth. That means I'd need trim down if I wanted to vacation there.

Given the planet's proximity to it's star it's possible the planet doesn't have day and night but instead one face of the planet may always point toward the star (like one side of the moon always faces the earth).

Another article indicates that future developments may enable scientists to block the light of the star itself and take direct spectrographic images of the planet itself to determine if the planet has water or materials common to life.

Here's another good link with a bit more info.