The Quick Hit: 9 Things to Know About the New Earth-Like Planets

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

From Popular Mechanics

NASA just made a major announcement: A small star called TRAPPIST-1 has seven planets orbiting it that could be similar to Earth. All of them are roughly the same size as our home planet. Six are likely rocky, and three are in the so-called habitable zone, meaning they could have liquid water.

Here's what you need to know.

  1. These planets are now considered the best places to search for life outside our solar system.

  2. Three of the planets were discovered last year, and the additional four were just recently found using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

  3. TRAPPIST-1 is about 39 light-years from Earth.

  4. All seven could have liquid water, but the 4th, 5th, and 6th from the star are the most likely candidates.

  5. The star has just 8 percent as much mass as the sun.

  6. All the planets orbit closer to their star than Mercury orbits the sun.

  7. TRAPPIST-1e is very close to Earth's size and receives about the same amount of light as Earth.

  8. TRAPPIST-1f is also very close to Earth's size and receives about the same amount of light as Mars.

  9. By studying the planets' atmospheres with powerful telescopes, we should be able to figure out if the planets have water or not as well as other surface conditions.

As for what living in the TRAPPIST-1 system would be like, NASA says: "If a person was standing on one of the planet's surface, they could gaze up and potentially see geological features or clouds of neighboring worlds, which would sometimes appear larger than the moon in Earth's sky."

You can read our full report on the TRAPPIST-1 system here.

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