This is interesting. Apparently it's the closest finding so far to an Earth like world. It's in the Goldilocks zone of its star and isn't much larger than Earth. It's also only 500 light years away. http://m.theatlantic.com/technology...ists-just-found-earths-closest-cousin/360843/
"The Goldilock's zone" does refer to an average distance from a star that would allow for habitable conditions, similar to Earth. So, yeah, pretty much just right.
Worth investigating, to the extant we can, sure. At this point, not much to get excited about, and even should they be able to discern an atmosphere, let alone having oxygen and other gasses which could signal the possibility of life, that does little good here except as a point of philosophy. Folks here on Earth already have a hard time accepting basic tenants of biology, getting them to buy the set of conclusions (however logical and based on facts of how chemistry and biochemistry work) that lead to concluding life could exist on that planet is a tall order to say the least.
It's on the extreme outer edge of the Goldilocks Zone, i think a bit beyond where Mars is in our system. The average temperatures on the planet would be around some of the colder temperatures on Earth. Within a livable temperature range for life as we know it, but barely.
And for some reason, the scientists in the stuff I've read about the planet think that its atmosphere would have been boiled away earlier in the life of the planet and its star. It's still good to see, though, because if we're able to pinpoint planets in the right size range now, I can't help but think it won't be long before we find one that we'll be able to see could support life.
I think you mean tenets. If we found evidence of tenants, this planet would be something to get excited about.
What I've seen is that they're not sure/have no way of detecting if the planet has, or ever had, an atmosphere. I've just seen a lot of postulating and explaining of all the "could bes" on the planet.
It would be wonderful to investigate it, but that planet is 500 lightyears away from Earth, so it's going to be awhile before we can get close to it.
The star is a red dwarf, so that means it will live for a very long time. The planet may be far enough out that it isn't tidally locked into captured rotation, I hope. I still would like to know more about 47 Ursae Majoris. The star there is a bit brighter than our Sun, and its slightly larger version of Jupiter is about where our asteroid belt would be in relation to that star. That and the gas giant would serve as a reflector. Combine a brighter star with a closer gas giant--and that means any Europa type moon might have the effective insolation distance of Mars, and still have a lot of water.