“The seven exoplanets were all found in tight formation around an ultracool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1.”
Astronomers have found at least seven Earth-sized planets orbiting the same star 40 light-years away, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The findings were also announced at a news conference at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
This discovery outside of our solar system is rare because the planets have the winning combination of being similar in size to Earth and being all temperate, meaning they could have water on theirsurfaces and potentially support life.
In late 2015, in the Chilean desert, astronomers pointed a telescope at a faint, nearby star known as ared dwarf. Amid the star’s dim infrared glow, they spotted periodic dips, a telltale sign that something was passing in front of it, blocking its light every so often. Last summer, the astronomers concluded the mysterious dimming came from three Earth-like planets—and that they were orbiting in the star’s temperate zone, where temperatures are not too hot, and not too cold, but just right for liquid water, and maybe even life.
This was an important find. Scientists for years had focused on stars like our sun in their search for potentially habitable planets outside our solar system. Red dwarfs, smaller and cooler than the sun, were thought to create inhospitable conditions. They’re also harder to see, detectable by infrared rather than visible light. But the astronomers aimed hundreds of hours worth of observations at this dwarf, known as TRAPPIST-1 anyway, using ground-based telescopes around the world and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.
Interestingly, Seager, who studies bio signatures in exoplanet atmospheres, has suggested that two inhabited planets could reasonably turn up during the next decade, based on her modified version of the Drake equation, Space.com notes. Her equation focuses on the search for planets with biosignature gases — gases produced by life that can accumulate in a planet atmosphere to levels that can be detected with remote space telescopes.
Artist’s concept of exoplanet Kepler-452b, the first near-Earth-size world to be found in the habitable zone of a star similar to our Sun. (credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle)
NASA will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 22, to present new findings on exoplanets — planets that orbit stars other than our sun. As of Feb. 21, NASA has discovered and confirmed 3,440 exoplanets.
The briefing participants are Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington; Michael Gillon, astronomer at the University of Liege in Belgium; Sean Carey, manager of NASA’s Spitzer Science Center at Caltech/IPAC, Pasadena, California; Nikole Lewis, astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and Sara Seager, professor of planetary science and physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Details of the findings are embargoed by the journal Nature until 1 p.m.
We may be about to meet some strange new worlds beyond our solar system.
NASA will hold a news conference Wednesday to make an announcement on exoplanets, planets that orbit a star other than our own sun. You can tune in at 1 p.m. ET and stick around for a Reddit Q&A with the researchers at 3 pm.
The dwarf planet Ceres keeps looking better and better as a possible home for alien life.
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has spotted organic molecules — the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it — on Ceres for the first time, a study published today (Feb. 16) in the journal Science reports.
And these organics appear to be native, likely forming on Ceres rather than arriving via asteroid or comet strikes, study team members said.
Enjoy this Sci-Fi short film created by the talented Jason J. Whitmore! Earth’s days are numbered when a nearby star goes supernova. Seizing the opportunity, an alien race has offered humanity a deal: Be our slaves or be left to die. As one couple struggles toward the last escaping ship, they grapple with the cost of sacrificing their freedom for their survival.
