NASA Discovery Makes Earth Seem Less Unique
This is a rendering done by an artist of what it might look like standing on the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1f. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Photo courtesy of exoplanets.nasa.gov.

NASA Discovery Makes Earth Seem Less Unique

Last Wednesday, NASA announced the discovery of a nearby star that has more planets orbiting it than any solar system previously discovered. What’s more is each of the seven planets is considered to be Earth-like.

Sebastian Zamfir, associate professor of astronomy said, “There are many planetary systems where there are more than one planet, but seven, this is a first, this is the record.

Some of the planets orbiting this star were first discovered in 2015 by astronomers in Chile. The telescope they used, the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope, is where the name TRAPPIST-1 comes from.

However, at the original time of discovery, only three planets were found.

The announcement on Wednesday revealed the discovery of seven planets, all of which are similar to Earth both in mass and in diameter. This means that the planets are likely comprised of rocky substances and are probably not gaseous, like Jupiter and Saturn are.

“Three of these seven planets are in the so called ‘habitable zone’ otherwise known as the ‘Goldilocks zone’ which means the temperature in the region is in the appropriate range to have liquid water with high probability,” said Zamfir.

The combination of Earth-like composition and being in the habitable zone entails that these planets are good candidates for hosting extra-terrestrial life-something that is of high priority for researchers at NASA.

One very striking fact involved in this discovery, is how incredibly close this star system is to Earth.

TRAPPIST-1 is about 40 light-years from the Earth. That is to say it would take light, the fastest traveling substance known, 40 years to travel to Earth from TRAPPIST-1. To put that in perspective, the closest star to Earth is around five light-years away and the edge of the observable universe is about 46 billion light-years wide.

It would also seem that the more we learn about the cosmos, the more likely it is that there is life just around the corner.

“Scientists have discovered that even the nearest star, Proxima, which is 4.2 light-years away, has a planet. And then they realized that of all the planets that they had discovered so far orbiting other stars, that’s the best one in terms of similarity to Earth,” Zamfir said.

Even though these newly discovered planets are quite similar, there are some notable differences from our solar system.

One is that the host star is much smaller and much cooler than our Sun.

Another is how close the planets on TRAPPIST-1 are to one another. If standing on the surface of one planet, you could see the other planets better than one can see Earth’s moon from Earth.

“You’d see mountains and valleys with your naked eyes,” said Zamfir.

Earth may never know if its newly discovered neighbors host life or not, but after last Wednesday, it seems this planet is a little less unique than previously assumed.

 

Connor Schoelzel

Reporter

connor.l.schoelzel@yahoo.com

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