NASA Telescope Reveals Largest Batch of Earth-Size, Habitable-Zone Planets Around Single Star

NASA Telescope Reveals Largest Batch of Earth-Size, Habitable-Zone Planets Around Single Star

This was the exciting news revealed by a team of researchers  on the 22nd of February 2017, this was a follow up to a similar announcement made in May 2016 by the Trappist 1 team, according to the website managed by the discovery team of TRAPPIST-1 , “TRAPPIST-1 is a planetary system, located 12 parsecs away from the Solar system (39 light years), near the ecliptic, within the constellation of Aquarius. Around a star which is 12 times less massive than the Sun and only slightly larger than Jupiter, there are at least seven planets in orbit.

The initial discovery was made by TRAPPIST, the TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope. Additional planets were subsequently identified using TRAPPIST and the Spitzer space telescope, the Very Large Telescope, UKIRT, the Liverpool Telescope and the William Herschel Telescope.”

The TRAPPIST-1 star, an ultra-cool dwarf, has seven Earth-size planets orbiting it. This artist’s concept appeared on the cover of the journal Nature on Feb. 23, 2017. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA website says The discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system. All of these seven planets could have liquid water – key to life as we know it – under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone.

The initial discovery by TRAPPIST which found 3 planets was verified by the Spitzer space telescope which confirmed 2 of the 3 and found additional 5 making a total of 7 amongst which 3 could potentially harbour life by virtue of their position in the goldilock zone, the goldilock zone is that zone where its neither too hot nor too cold for a planet in a solar system to harbour life as we know it. Read more

Trappist-1 System image – courtesy NASA

“This discovery could be a significant piece in the puzzle of finding habitable environments, places that are conducive to life,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “Answering the question ‘are we alone’ is a top science priority and finding so many planets like these for the first time in the habitable zone is a remarkable step forward toward that goal.

This is not the first time NASA has claimed to discover new planets but this is the first time they have found more than one earth-like planet orbiting the same Sun. In May 2014, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope astronomers discovered the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the “habitable zone” — the range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. The discovery of Kepler-186f confirmed to NASA that planets the size of Earth exist in the habitable zone of stars other than our sun.

In July 2015, NASA had discovered about a dozen habitable zone planets in the Earth-size ballpark have been discovered so far — that is, 10 to 15 planets between one-half and twice the diameter of Earth, depending on how the habitable zone is defined and allowing for uncertainties about some of the planetary sizes.

A new discovery, Kepler-452b, became the golden child as it was the most similar to the Earth-sun system found then: a planet at the right temperature within the habitable zone, and only about one-and-a-half times the diameter of Earth, circling a star very much like our own sun. The planet also had a good chance of being rocky, like Earth, its discoverers said.

What is now so intriguing about Kepler-452b is the timing around its finding as 2015 marked the 20^th anniversary of the first exoplanet confirmed to be in orbit around a typical star. A fact admitted to by NASA itself. Read more here

And to TRAPPIST-1, aside being a record discovery, there is always a story behind any news; perhaps this has to do with the impending budget cuts of the Trump administration to NASA, The Trump administration proposed cutting NASAs climate change funding due to it allegedly being politicised. President Donald Trump’s plan according to Quartz media is to shift those resources which is less then $2 billion of the agency’s $19 billion budget to its space program. This might look like nothing would happen to the space program but according to Phys.org, the satellites serving the climate change research also provides data for other agencies like FEMA and NOAA  stopping funding may give rise to wandering satellites which could create spac debris on colliding with other sapce debris or satellites and affect almost all other programs, finding a new exoplanets could be a backdoor to saving these satellites and continuing the climate change research.