On Wed. Feb. 22, NASA announced that they had made a new discovery. Their space telescope, Spitzer, found seven new planets orbiting a single star. Of these seven planets, three of them are in the habitable zone. This means that temperatures are that where liquid water could exist. This grouping of earth sized planets is the first of its kind that we have discovered.
NASA has named this system TRAPPIST-1. These seven planets are located about 235 trillion miles away from earth. According to NASA. Traveling at the speed of light it would take four years.
“I think it’s possible to travel to TRAPPIST-1, but probably won’t happen in our lifetime,” senior Olivia Scharf said.
These planets were first discovered in May 2016 using earth based telescopes in Chile. When they sent the Spitzer telescope, scientist were only aware of three of the seven planets. The Spitzer telescope allowed scientist to estimated the density and approximate temperatures on each of the seven planets.
Unlike planets in our Solar System, those in TRAPPIST-1 do not rotate. This means that one face of the planet is always facing the star they orbit around, consequently only one side of the planet ever sees light. These planets could have weather patterns unlike any on earth.
Although these planets are light years away and the possibility of reaching them it unlikely, These are the first planets that scientists have discovered that would be habitable to humans. This is another small step for the space exploration