Whaleblue
Southbound
Seven Earth-sized planets, three of which are in the Goldilocks zone, orbiting the same star.
Joe
I wonder how many tri-world wars they'll have had?
Seven Earth-sized planets, three of which are in the Goldilocks zone, orbiting the same star.
Joe
Could be related to this, Michael Gillon on the briefing list was part of the team to discover them:
Astrophysicists from the University of Liege using the TRAPPIST telescope have discovered a planetary system formed of three Earth-sized planets around an « ultracool red dwarf star » slightly bigger than Jupiter in size. While these planets are close to their host star, they are not exposed to very high temperatures and could harbor areas on their surfaces that are suitable for life. The new planetary system is only 40 light years away from Earth. This proximity should allow the future generation of large telescopes to study the atmosphere of these planets with precision. As of today, these planets are the most promising candidates for having liquid water or even life outside the solar system. Even though the news has just been published in the journal Nature, it is probably a safe bet that teams of astrophysicists over the world will be tripping over each other to study this planetary system. In the meantime, the team that made the surprising discovery only has eyes for "its" small nearby star...
Iain,
Fascinating. Any speculation on the likelihood of life on any of the exoplanets?
Joe
This is neat, a NASA site that lets you explore these strange new worlds....
Just need to find somewhere to park...