By: Zoe Strickland Managing Editor
After decades of searching for the possibility of life beyond Earth, scientists have found what they were looking for. On Feb. 22, NASA announced that a new solar system containing seven Earth-size planets was discovered.
TRAPPIST-1 is located in the Aquarius system and is around 40 light-years away from Earth. The exoplanet system was named TRAPPIST-1 after a telescope in Chile. Researchers using the Chilean telescope found the first two planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system in May of 2016. The five remaining planets were discovered using the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope, which enabled them to have a more in-depth examination of the planets.
The research effort to locate and classify the planets was led by the scientific research team at the University of Liege.
“The seven wonders of TRAPPIST-1 are the first Earth-size planets that have been found orbiting this kind of star … It is also the best target yet for studying atmospheres of potentially habitable, Earth-size worlds” said Michael Gillon, leader of the team of astronomers that discovered TRAPPIST- 1, in a press release put out by NASA.
Though the seven planets are a similar size to Earth, they boast different features. All of the planets in the newly discovered system are closer to each other in orbit than the planets in our own solar system. According to the report that NASA put out, “If a person were 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”.
Though scientists are still trying to find information regarding the makeup of the planets, they have found details that indicate whether the newly-discovered planets could be habitable. “While the other planets in the system could only have liquid water over a small part of their surface, these three planets e, f and g could contain oceans similar to those on Earth, ” said Julien de Wit, a post-doctoral student at MIT who is in charge of heading up the atmospheric studies of the planet, in a University of Liege release.
In addition to the difference in planet proximity and makeup, TRAPPIST-1’s star has features that mirror the sun. According to the University of Liege press release, the star of TRAPPIST-1 is classified as an ultra-cold dwarf, which means it’s both smaller and significantly colder than the sun.
Though the discovery of the new planets has jolted the scientific world, there is still a significant amount of research to be done. In 2018, NASA is sending the James Webb Space Telescope into space to look for more information regarding TRAPPIST-1.
Contact the author at journalmanaging@wou.edu
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