Scientists
working with telescopes at the European Southern Observatory and NASA announced
a remarkable new discovery: An entire system of Earth-sized planets. If that’s
not enough, the team asserts that the density measurements of the planets
indicates that the six innermost are Earth-like rocky worlds.
And that’s
just the beginning.
Three of the
planets lie in the star’s habitable zone. If you aren’t familiar with the term,
the habitable zone (also known as the “goldilocks zone”) is the region
surrounding a star in which liquid water could theoretically exist. This means
that all three of these alien worlds may have entire oceans of water, dramatically
increasing the possibility of life.
The other
planets are less likely to host oceans of water, but the team states that
liquid water is still a possibility on each of these worlds. Summing the work,
lead author Michaël Gillon notes that this solar system has the largest number
of Earth-sized planets yet found and the largest number of worlds that could
support liquid water:
“This is an
amazing planetary system — not only because we have found so many planets, but
because they are all surprisingly similar in size to the Earth!”
Co-author
Amaury Triaud notes that the star in this system is an “ultracool dwarf,” and
he clarifies what this means in relation to the planets:
“The energy output from dwarf stars like TRAPPIST-1 is much weaker than that of our Sun. Planets would need to be in far closer orbits than we see in the Solar System if there is to be surface water. Fortunately, it seems that this kind of compact configuration is just what we see around TRAPPIST-1.”
This
illustration shows the possible surface of TRAPPIST-1f, one of the newly
discovered planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. Scientists using the Spitzer Space
Telescope and ground-based telescopes have discovered that there are seven
Earth-size planets in the system.
Reaching
Another World
The system
is just 40 light-years away. On a cosmic scale, that’s right next door. Of
course, practically speaking, it would still take us hundreds of millions of
years to get there with today’s technology - but again, it is notable in that
the find speaks volumes about the potential for life-as-we-know-it beyond
Earth.
These new
discoveries ultimately mean that TRAPPIST-1 is of monumental importance for
future study. The Hubble Space Telescope is already being used to search for
atmospheres around the planets, and Emmanuël Jehin, a scientist who also worked
on the research, asserts that future telescopes could allow us to truly see
into the heart of this system.
The
TRAPPIST-1 star, an ultra-cool dwarf, has seven Earth-size planets orbiting it.
This artist's concept appeared on the cover of the journal Nature on Feb. 23,
2017.
Credits:
NASA/JPL-Caltech
As Jehin
states:
“With the
upcoming generation of telescopes, such as ESO’s European Extremely Large
Telescope and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, we will soon be able
to search for water and perhaps even evidence of life on these worlds.”
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