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NASA Just Found A Solar System With 7 Earth-Like Planets
Jolene Creighton 6 hours ago Categories: Hard Science Tags: NASA, planets, space


An Ocean of Worlds

Today, scientists working with telescopes at the European Southern Observatory and NASA announced a remarkable new discovery: An entire system of Earth-sized planets. If that’s not enough, the team asserts that the density measurements of the planets indicates that the six innermost are Earth-like rocky worlds.

And that’s just the beginning.

Three of the planets lie in the star’s habitable zone. If you aren’t familiar with the term, the habitable zone (also known as the “goldilocks zone”) is the region surrounding a star in which liquid water could theoretically exist. This means that all three of these alien worlds may have entire oceans of water, dramatically increasing the possibility of life. The other planets are less likely to host oceans of water, but the team states that liquid water is still a possibility on each of these worlds.

Summing the work, lead author Michaël Gillon notes that this solar system has the largest number of Earth-sized planets yet found and the largest number of worlds that could support liquid water: “This is an amazing planetary system — not only because we have found so many planets, but because they are all surprisingly similar in size to the Earth!”

Co-author Amaury Triaud notes that the star in this system is an “ultracool dwarf,” and he clarifies what this means in relation to the planets: “The energy output from dwarf stars like TRAPPIST-1 is much weaker than that of our Sun. Planets would need to be in far closer orbits than we see in the Solar System if there is to be surface water. Fortunately, it seems that this kind of compact configuration is just what we see around TRAPPIST-1.”

Reaching Another World

The system is just 40 light-years away. On a cosmic scale, that’s right next door. Of course, practically speaking, it would still take us hundreds of millions of years to get there with today’s technology – but again, it is notable in that the find speaks volumes about the potential for life-as-we-know-it beyond Earth.

Moreover, the technology of tomorrow could get us to this system a lot faster.

These new discoveries ultimately mean that TRAPPIST-1 is of monumental importance for future study. The Hubble Space Telescope is already being used to search for atmospheres around the planets, and Emmanuël Jehin, a scientist who also worked on the research, asserts that future telescopes could allow us to truly see into the heart of this system: “With the upcoming generation of telescopes, such as ESO’s European Extremely Large Telescope and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, we will soon be able to search for water and perhaps even evidence of life on these worlds

https://www.google.com/amp/s/futuri...-7-earth-like-planets/amp/?client=safari


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I'm a huge fan of space research and NASA, but this elation about habitable planets has to be toned down. It's beginning to mimic that awful TV show "Expedition Unknown" where the host is "preparing to find new evidence" but never finds anything factual at all.

We can't even get to Mars, much less to some other solar system. We may be able to someday, but that day is a helluva long way off. If ever.


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If we had sent voyager towards these rocky planets, how many more years would it be before it arrived?...if there was intelligent life there that were capable of a SETI type of listening system, they MAY finally have received the radio signal that it's on its way....40 light years is a long, long ways off...

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Originally Posted by Middlefork_Miner
If we had sent voyager towards these rocky planets, how many more years would it be before it arrived?...


Several hundred thousand years at best.

We will never visit planets around other stars unless some totally unanticipated means of propulsion shows up.


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Originally Posted by IndyCA35
Originally Posted by Middlefork_Miner
If we had sent voyager towards these rocky planets, how many more years would it be before it arrived?...


Several hundred thousand years at best.

We will never visit planets around other stars unless some totally unanticipated means of propulsion shows up.


Don't they have Hyper Drive like in the movies? grin


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"Ludicrous speed" smile


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Let's move there leave Dumbocrats here!

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Originally Posted by IndyCA35
Originally Posted by Middlefork_Miner
If we had sent voyager towards these rocky planets, how many more years would it be before it arrived?...


We will never visit planets around other stars unless some totally unanticipated means of propulsion shows up.


I agree and disagree...we will figure out a way, one way or another, it's what we do. Mankind is in its infancy technology wise...we've only had radio transmissions for about a hundred years and have only had powered flight for about the same length of time...here we are, 100 or so years later. We've landed on the moon and came home, we've landed on Mars and are remotely operating solar powered "rovers" there from "Urth", where they're taking soil samples, pictures, etc. and sending the results back home...We've flown past, orbited and taken pictures of every planet and their moons...all in the past hundred years....the blink of an eye time wise. Looking and reading at some of the future technologies now under research and development, boggles the mind.

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yeah, we humans are on the verge of something big. can't describe it, but it's there, no doubt.

we've come so far, so fast. and in the last 100 years it's been breathtaking. shoot, in the last thirty years we've seen the advent of al gore's internet invention about revolutionize our lives..and the cell phones galore. no need for land lines for phones in Afrikur, just use satellites, and cell towers.

if our extra-terrestrial keepers and overseers keep feeding us information, there's no tellin' what we might bring on line in the near future.

afterall, what's time to a hawg?


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I actually believe these are God's backup planets when he or we punch the red button on this one. And that might not be too far off based on the way folks are tracking.

BTW forget us getting there. What if "they" get here first!?

Last edited by byc; 02/22/17.

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Originally Posted by SandBilly

The system is just 40 light-years away. On a cosmic scale, that’s right next door. Of course, practically speaking, it would still take us hundreds of millions of years to get there with today’s technology
You'd only need to travel at half the speed of light to get there in eighty years. Seems within our technological ability, but it would require a multi-generational journey, unless we can figure out suspended animation.

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Originally Posted by byc

BTW forget us getting there. What if they get to here!?


If I were a liberal I'd give you the answer....

NOW YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE BLACK

If I were an alien, I'd tell you...

SMOKE EM IF YOU GOT EM....

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HA! laffin' grin

Touche'


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A ship built from neutronium could make such a voyage.

The government denies it exists, but there are laws preventing public ownership. Its the reason everyone is looking around on the ice in Antarctica. Imagine shooting a bullet that never slows down.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutronium#Neutronium_and_the_periodic_table


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the High Priests at NASA have known for some time that we've got to get a breeding population of humans off this earth, and we need to do it soon.

ol Bill Cooper (who?) knew that, way back in the day.

but time marches on.

the Universe is here for our taking. just ask ringman's opinion. i'm sure he might have one.


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Quite a big revelation for an agency that is a shadow of its former prominence.
We've got enough problems here - why go looking for more elsewhere?


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Originally Posted by Gus

the Universe is here for our taking.


Supposedly Ben Rich said some pretty interesting things just before he died....don't google his name and get caught up in links though...your electronics won't like the results...

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Son of a liberal: " What did you do in the War On Terror, Daddy?"

Liberal father: " I fought the Americans, along with all the other liberals."

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Originally Posted by bigwhoop
Quite a big revelation for an agency that is a shadow of its former prominence.
We've got enough problems here - why go looking for more elsewhere?


Because the answer is out there...... wink


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Originally Posted by The_Real_Hawkeye
Originally Posted by SandBilly

The system is just 40 light-years away. On a cosmic scale, that’s right next door. Of course, practically speaking, it would still take us hundreds of millions of years to get there with today’s technology
You'd only need to travel at half the speed of light to get there in eighty years. Seems within our technological ability, but it would require a multi-generational journey, unless we can figure out suspended animation.


Seeing as .5 C = 93,000 miles/second. And 1 G acceleration is 32 ft/sec/sec. I get about six months of constant 1 G acceleration to reach target velocity. And, of course, another six months to decelerate. (Folks, please feel free to check my math. And correct me if I made a mistake.)

That seems doable.

Except for that pesky E=mv2 thing. Where the energy required to accelerate increases exponentially with speed. Coupled with the problem, that the mass of your fuel to accelerate and decelerate must also be accelerated.

A multi-generational craft capable of interstellar flight measured in decades and unsupported colonization would have to be comparable to a modern day US aircraft carrier in size.

I can not comprehend the amount of fuel it would take to hold such a craft to a year of 1 G acceleration.

It would require fleets and fleets of equivalently sized tankers to accompany the vessel.

I wonder if that amount of hydrogen and oxygen could be extracted from this planet.



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