On Wednesday February 22, 2017, NASA announced that some they had discovered Sven new Earth- like planets orbiting around a single star in a solar system not so far away. Here's what you should know about it.
1) It's called TRAPPIST-1 after the the Transiting Planets and Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) located in Chile that spotted two of the planets in 2016.
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2.) It's an exoplanet system which simply means it's located outside of our solar system
3.) It's 40 light years away, or 235 trillion miles, which is relatively close in space time. Or if you own a Millennium Falcon it should take you no time at all to get there.
4.) All seven planets are likely to have rocky terrain, like Earth.
5.) The star the planets are orbiting is an ultra cool dwarf, which means it's cold enough that liquid water could survive on the orbiting planets. Although the phrase 'ultra cool dwarf' makes me picture Gimli from Lord of the Rings wearing dope sunglasses and a tuxedo.
6.) All seven planets are really close together, if you were to stand on on one of them you would probably be able to see a few of the neighboring planets whizzing by.
7.) The planets may be tidally locked meaning one side of the planet is always facing the star it's orbiting, so one side of the planet is always day and the other is always night.
8.) Three of the planets are in the habitable zone, which means they are in an area of space where conditions are best for life to exist. Maybe that's where E.T. lives.
For more info be sure to go to NASA's website.
Thanks for reading!
