SEVEN Earth Sized Planets Discovered!!!
If you read the title, do not wipe your eyes, or double take! That does say SEVEN Earth sized planets discovered. It is one of the biggest discoveries of my life time in my own opinion. What makes this discovery so much more significant than all of the others. Well, Here's why!!
The Amount of Planets Discovered in One System
This system is different than most of the other systems discovered. There have been more than 3,400 exoplanets discovered since this program started. While the Kepler space telescope is the familiar exoplanet finder, the Spitzer Space Telescope takes the credit for this find. This is special because Seven planets were discovered at once, in the same system, with three of them being located in the habitable zone or "Goldilocks" zone. Which leads me into the point.
The Habitable Zone
Everyone has heard of the Habitable Zone! But, just what is the Habitable Zone? Well it is commonly referred to as the "Goldilocks" Zone. It is the zone where liquid water and possibly even life can be sustained. In our solar system, 3 planets exist inside of the Habitable Zone; Earth, Venus, and Mars. The problem with Mars is that it sits to the far end of our zone where it experiences freezing cold temperatures. Venus is on the front end of the Habitable Zone and it experienced the greenhouse effect and became so hot that all of the water that was there evaporated. In the newly discovered system TRAPPIST-1, the planets that exist in the Habitable Zone are TRAPPIST-1e, g, and f. TRAPPIST-1e is roughly the same size of the Earth and receives about the same amount of star light as the Earth.
Planet TRAPPIST-1e seems to have great potential for oceans, high oxygen concentration, and more Earth like features. This is why this discovery is so revolutionary. If that is not enough for you, there have been 3,449 confirmed exoplanets. NASA says that there are potentially 100 billion exoplanets out there to be discovered. How many do you think will be in the Habitable Zone?
The distance
This is quite possibly the most important criteria. These planets are 40 light-years away. What is a light year? A light year is the distance that light travels in one year. This is saying it would take 40 years, traveling at the speed of light, to reach one of these planets. How fast is the speed of light? That is a mind boggling 186,000 miles per SECOND! Sadly, we have not reached anywhere close to traveling at those speeds. I know what you are thinking, if the new planets are so far away, how come I am making such a big deal about this? Roughly 6 months ago, we discovered an exoplanet known as Proxima b. this exoplanet orbits our nearest neighboring star which is 4.2 light-years away. This system is only made up of that one exoplanet. Discovering the TRAPPIST-1 system just a mere 40 light years away, with SEVEN exoplanets, and THREE of those in the Habitable Zone, is a wonderful and revolutionary find when compared to the vastness of the universe.
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