Habitable Exoplanet Discovery

 

Habitable Exoplanet Discovery

NASA/JPL – Caltech:  illustration showing the possible surface of TRAPPIST-1f, one of the newly discovered planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system

 

On 22 February 2017,  scientists working at the California Institute of Technology for NASA, using the Spitzer Space Telescope, announced the discovery of seven potentially habitable exoplanets orbiting around a single star –a red dwarf at just 39 light years away.

 

This star is small, and shines with a feeble red light. The planets are bunched together to take advantage of this light and heat.

All of these seven Earth-size planets could have liquid water – key to life as we know it – under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three located within the habitable zone of the TRAPPIST-1 solar system