NASA has discovered 3 earth-like planets

NASA has discovered 3 earth-like planets

This illustration shows the seven planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1, and ultra-cool dwarf star, as they might look as viewed from Earth using a fictional, incredibly powerful telescope. Credits: NASA-JPL/Caltech
This illustration shows the seven planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1, and ultra-cool dwarf star, as they might look as viewed from Earth using a fictional, incredibly powerful telescope. Credits: NASA-JPL/Caltech

On February 22, NASA has made a very important announcement in a press conference held in Washington: 3 planets with the size of the Earth have been discovered using Trappist telescope.

The new discovered solar system named Trappist-1 (transiting planets and planetesimals small telescope), after the telescope that discovered these three planets, has a dwarf star located 40 light-years away  distance to our planet, denoting that we  could not travel towards them anytime soon.

Spitzer Space Telescope, helped by the NASA’s scientists  from the ground, confirmed the existence of these three planets, but also discovered the existence of 5 more in the same solar system.
Collected data results were published February 22 in Nature magazine. With the help of Spitzer, scientists have succesful measured the mass of all 7 planets,  and also the density.
Despite our Sun, the new discovered dwarf-star of the Trappist-1 solar system allows planets orbiting at a small distance around it to have liquit water and also life (in this case, the distance is smaller  than that of Mercury from the Sun).

This artist's concept appeared on the Feb. 23, 2017 cover of the journal Nature announcing that the TRAPPIST-1 star, an ultra-cool dwarf, has seven Earth-size planets orbiting it. Any of these planets could have liquid water on them. Planets that are farther from the star are more likely to have significant amounts of ice, especially on the side that faces away from the star. Credits: NASA-JPL/Caltech
This artist’s concept appeared on the Feb. 23, 2017 cover of the journal Nature announcing that the TRAPPIST-1 star, an ultra-cool dwarf, has seven Earth-size planets orbiting it. Any of these planets could have liquid water on them. Planets that are farther from the star are more likely to have significant amounts of ice, especially on the side that faces away from the star. Credits: NASA-JPL/Caltech

All these 7 exoplanets are also orbiting very close to each other – If you’re standing on one of these planets, you can see the others closer than we see our moon from here.

They seem to have the same side always facing the sun, which means that one half of the planet is heated and the other one is cold, but also that the light is not warming up the dark side.

 

“This is the most exciting result I have seen in the 14 years of Spitzer operations,” said Sean Carey, manager of NASA’s Spitzer Science Center at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California. ”

Spitzer will follow up in the fall to further refine our understanding of these planets so that the James Webb Space Telescope can follow up. More observations of the system are sure to reveal more secrets.”

This 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. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
This 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. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Source: NASA.

 

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