In terms of cosmic distances, 40 light years isn't that far away, and that's where astronomers have discovered a treasure trove of Earth-like planets, seven in all, with three in the Goldilocks habitable zone.
Mind you, it's still more than 200 trillion miles away, but the universe is a big, big place. The astronomers called it "the best target yet for studying the atmospheres of potentially habitable, Earth-like worlds." Reading between the lines suggests that if life is going to exist in anywhere else in the cosmos, this system is a likely candidate.
At the center of the system, called TRAPPIST-1, is an ultra-cool dwarf star. It's a fraction of the size of our own sun and burns coolly enough for liquid water to exist on planets orbiting nearby.
That's a good thing, because all seven of the planets orbiting the star are closer to it than Mercury is to our sun. TRAPPIST-1 shines brightest in infrared light, so it's only natural that NASA used Spitzer Space Telescope, an infrared telescope, to study the system. Observations by Hubble confirmed that the planets were rocky and Earth-like and not gaseous.
Weirdly, the planets are quite close to each other. From the surface, another planet would be visible in the sky like the moon is visible to us.
They would be much larger than the bright specks – large enough that, in theory, you might be able to see clouds moving across the surface or make out geological features.
It's still in its early days, but NASA's astronomers are clearly excited about this discovery. "This is the most exciting result I have seen in the 14 years of Spitzer operations," said Sean Carey, manager of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California.
"Spitzer will follow up in the fall to further refine our understanding of these planets so that the James Webb Space Telescope can follow up. More observations of the system are sure to reveal more secrets.”
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