February 22, 2017

7 Earth-Sized Planets Discovered

Ohhh snap. Check out this space news (via CNN):

Size comparison of the four terrestrial planet...

Size comparison of the four terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars and the terrestrial dwarf planet Ceres. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(NOTE: the photo above does not depict the planets in question. It’s just a cool photo of planets.)

Astronomers have found at least seven Earth-like planets orbiting the same star 40 light-years away, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The findings were also announced at a news conference at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
This discovery outside of our solar system is rare because the planets have the winning combination of being similar in size to Earth and being all temperate, meaning they could have water on their surface and potentially support life.
The seven exoplanets were all found in tight formation around an ultracool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1. Estimates of their mass also indicate that they are rocky planets, rather than being gaseous like Jupiter.

“Ultracool dwarf star” is my favorite phrase of the day.

Source: CNN


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