There’s nothing special about the Sun that makes it more likely than other stars to host life, a new study by Australian National University scientists shows. The finding adds weight to the idea that alien life should be common throughout the universe.

They suggest that there are probably no special attributes that a star requires to have a habitable planet, other than the obvious one — the planet must be within the star’s habitable “goldilocks” zone, orbiting at a distance where the temperature is not too hot for life, nor too cold, but just right.