Seven Earth-sized exoplanets discovered: what does the Nasa announcement about the TRAPPIST-1 solar system all mean?
Seven Earth-sized exoplanets discovered: what does the Nasa announcement about the TRAPPIST-1 solar system all mean?
By Chiara Palazzo, The Telegraph (Technology), 23 February 2017
Turns out it wasn’t just dust on the telescope lens, Nasa astronomers have spotted seven Earth-size planets around a nearby star, some or all of which could harbour water and possibly life, so Google has marked the Earth-shattering discovery with a Doodle.
An artist's concept of the TRAPPIST-1 System compared with the Solar System Credit: JPL/Nasa
Why all the excitement?
Three of TRAPPIST-1's "exoplanets" are smack dab in the so-called habitable zone, also known as the Goldilocks zone, where conditions are just right for watery oceans - not too much and not too little stellar energy - greatly increasing the likelihood of life.
No other star system known contains such a large number of Earth-sized and probably rocky planets.
All are about the same size as Earth or Venus, or slightly smaller. Because the parent star is so dim, the planets are warmed gently despite having orbits much smaller than that of Mercury, the planet closest to the sun.
Scientists said they need to study the atmospheres before determining whether these rocky, terrestrial planets could support some sort of life.
But just because a planet is in this sweet spot, doesn't mean life exists or ever did.
Take a 360° tour of TRAPPIST-1d, one of the Earth-sized plants in the newly discovered system ~40 light-years away: https://t.co/5mMKpRPcoc pic.twitter.com/RRuPiOleOe
— NASA (@NASA) 22 February 2017
How's the view?
TRAPPIST-1, one of numerous ultracool dwarf stars out there in the galaxy, glows red. If you were to stand on one of the planets, the star might appear to be salmon-colored. Its planets are clumped so closely together, they would appear twice as big as our moon in the sky.
Gazing up, it would be possible to see the geological features, oceans and clouds of your planetary neighbours.
The temperature could be pretty similar to Earth as well, at least on one of these planets.
The TRAPPIST-1 star & 7 Earth-sized planets orbiting it, are relatively close to us; located ~40 light-years away: https://t.co/QS80AnZ2Jg pic.twitter.com/GiKAFXyNvo
— NASA (@NASA) 22 February 2017
How did they find out about TRAPPIST-1?
The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, was made by astronomers using Nasa's exoplanet-hunting Spitzer Space Telescope.
The telescope operates at the infrared wavelengths which glow brightest from TRAPPIST-1, and can detect the tiny dimming that occurs when a passing or "transiting" planet blocks out light from its star.
Spitzer's data allowed the team to measure precisely the sizes of the seven planets and estimate the masses and densities of six of them.
What does TRAPPIST-1 stand for?
Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope
What next?
Scientists need to study the atmospheres of these almost assuredly rocky planets before drawing any conclusions about water and life.
The Hubble Space Telescope already is on the case and the still-under-construction James Webb Space Telescope will join in once it's launched next year.
The Webb will search for gases that might be a byproduct of life: oxygen, ozone and methane. Scientists say it should take five years to get a handle on all these atmospheres, and figure out whether water - and maybe life - are present.
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If Carl Sagan were still with us he would be opening a bottle of champagne on seeing this.
OK, we know that three of the planets exist in the perfect orbit for life to develop like it did on Earth. So the question is, how can we find out IF a life form existed there 40 light year ago? How can we find a way to detect signs of life on other Earth type planets and how long will it take us to develop that ability?
I guess it would take so much longer to send the kind of probes that are being sent to Mars and oher planets and moons in our solar system that anyone alive here when they are sent would be long time dead and buried by the time they arrive at the targeted planets.
anyone alive here when they are sent would be long time dead and buried by the time they arrive at the targeted planets.
Which would make getting funding practicably impossible.
I'm not so sure about that. There are people who fund some pretty fantastic things. Think of Mr. Haddon in the movie "Contact".
It's very exciting! The odds of inhabitable planets seem to have been significantly underestimated.
Okay, I'm trying again to see if I can draw out anyone who hasn't already drowned in the cesspool of American politics.
First time I've seen this article. I read about this yesterday though. It's hard to believe we are alone even without this discovery.
Now if we can figure how to speed up our space travel, we can go check it out.
We only have to go...... 23,520,000,000,000,000 miles.
I found this article interesting as well. I've always loved math, but didn't pursue it.
The only thing I find similar is music. I think of music as math with feeling.
How far is a light-year?
"Light is the fastest-moving stuff in the universe." that we know of, or that we are capable of comprehending.
I think it is exciting.
We are not prepared to bridge a 40 light year gap though, so it will all remain 'theoretical' or beyond our reach. Maybe all the science fiction has led people to take extra terrestrials for granted a little too.
Think Cryonics, and the movie "When Worlds Collide".
Amazing coincidences. I just now chanced on discovering and started to watch a TV series called "Ascention", which is about a huge Noah's Arc type of spaceship with hundreds of people aboard heading for a planet that takes 100 years to get there. It is half way to its destination and the people on the ship are not the ones who left Earth, nor are they the ones who will land unless they live long enough. There is a movie about a similar type of spaceship called "Silent Running".
Bridging 40 light years in any meaningful time is more science fiction than science. Our fastest spacecraft, New Horizons, is moving at 32,000 miles an hour. At that speed, it would take over 800,000 years to reach Trappist 1. However, even if there is no intelligent life on Trappist 1 currently, nearly a million years is enough time for it to develop. So maybe all we can do is send a "message in a bottle" from one intelligent life form that used to exist (us) to one that has just appeared.
But then maybe we need to alter how we think of travel. Light is devoid of matter so it seems oxymoronic to assume that a physical object will ever travel at the speed of light. We might be wasting time thinking of travel in a galactic expanse the same way we think of travel on earth. I think we'd have a better shot of making contact by projecting ourselves in laser based images like Star Trek holograms, although it may still be just a "message in a bottle" if it can't see/hear or permit two-way communication.
On the other hand, all intelligent life may not be friendly and we could attract the attention of some rapacious insect-like creature that was previously unaware of us (like those in Independence Day) or a race of beings that would use us as an ingredient in a cookbook (like in an episode of Twilight Zone). Or maybe the beings just stop by with good intentions and accidentally kill us all with a disease for which we have no immunity (reverse variation of War of the Worlds).
Maybe we're not alone after all... No matter what, it's pretty mind-boggling...
Of course if these Trappists ever make contact with us it may be difficult to communicate with them if they insist on maintaining their vows of silence!
Of course if these Trappists ever make contact with us it may be difficult to communicate with them if they insist on maintaining their vows of silence!
But OTOH, the beer they make is supposed to be excellent!