Home News NASA’s Major Discovery Of 7 Earth-Size, Habitable Planets (Video)

NASA’s Major Discovery Of 7 Earth-Size, Habitable Planets (Video)

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Artist's concept shows what each of the TRAPPIST-1 planets may look like, based on available data about their sizes, masses and orbital distances. REUTERS/NASA/JPL-Caltech

(Video: ESO – European Southern Observatory)

Astronomers have never seen anything like this before: Seven Earth-size alien worlds orbit the same tiny, dim star, and all of them may be capable of supporting life as we know it, a new study reports.

“Looking for life elsewhere, this system is probably our best bet as of today,” study co-author Brice-Olivier Demory, a professor at the Center for Space and Habitability at the University of Bern in Switzerland, said in a statement.

The exoplanets circle the star TRAPPIST-1, which lies just 39 light-years from Earth — a mere stone’s throw in the cosmic scheme of things. So speculation about the alien worlds’ life-hosting potential should soon be informed by hard data, study team members said. [Images: The 7 Earth-Size Worlds of TRAPPIST-1]

 

[vc_btn title=”Continue reading” style=”outline” color=”primary” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.space.com%2F35790-seven-earth-size-planets-trappist-1-discovery.html%3Futm_source%3Dsp-newsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3D20170222-sdc|title:Continue%20reading|target:%20_blank|”][vc_message message_box_style=”3d” message_box_color=”blue”]By Space, excerpt posted on SouthFloridaReporter.com, Feb. 23, 2017

Video by ESO[/vc_message]