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posted by on Thursday February 23 2017, @01:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the tentatively-named-Doc-Grumpy-Happy-Sleepy-Bashful-Sneezy-and-Dopey dept.

Astronomers have observed enough planetary transits to confirm the existence of seven "Earth-sized" exoplanets orbiting TRAPPIST-1, an ultra-cool (~2550 K) red dwarf star about 39.5 light years away. Three of the exoplanets are located inside the "habitable zone" of their parent star. These three orbit from 0.028 to 0.045 AU away from the star:

Astronomers using the TRAPPIST–South telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory, the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal and the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope, as well as other telescopes around the world, have now confirmed the existence of at least seven small planets orbiting the cool red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. All the planets, labelled TRAPPIST-1b, c, d, e, f, g and h in order of increasing distance from their parent star, have sizes similar to Earth.

The exoplanets are presumed to be tidally locked. The six closest to TRAPPIST-1 have been determined to be rocky, while the seventh, TRAPPIST-1h, requires additional observations to determine its characteristics due to its longer orbital period.

Mass estimates for the planets range from 0.41 Earth masses (M) to 1.38 M. Radii range from 0.76 Earth radii (R) to 1.13 R.

Spitzer, Hubble, and other telescopes will continue to make observations of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system, but the best data will likely come from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is scheduled to launch in late 2018. JWST will allow the atmospheres and temperatures of many exoplanets to be characterized, which will help to settle whether the "habitable zones" of red dwarf stars are actually hospitable.

Artist illustrations and data for the TRAPPIST-1 system compared to Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Earth.

Here's a website dedicated to the star.

Seven temperate terrestrial planets around the nearby ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 (DOI: 10.1038/nature21360) (DX)


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Thursday February 23 2017, @03:21PM

    by Unixnut (5779) on Thursday February 23 2017, @03:21PM (#470724)

    Very interesting link, thanks for sharing.

    And the unsung OS providing a glimpse into another solar system? Microsoft Windows XP Pro!

    Not sure how to take that, if you have to use windows, then XP/2000 is pretty much the peak of Microsoft's work. Would have nice if it was an open source OS, but whatever works (and runs their software).

    However MS doesn't really support it anymore. I just hope it is airgapped if nothing else. Otherwise it is discovering amazing worlds by day, and DDOSing you at night while sending you v1agra emails.

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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 23 2017, @05:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 23 2017, @05:26PM (#470779)

    Not sure how to take that, if you have to use windows, then XP/2000 is pretty much the peak of Microsoft's work. Would have nice if it was an open source OS, but whatever works (and runs their software).

    A few weeks ago I participated in a small (20~30 people from ~10 countries) symposium about near-Earth space science at my university.

    Looking around the room, I noticed a distinct lack of those shiny Apple logos that I usually see everywhere else. There was only one Apple laptop in the room, and it belonged to a Master's student. Everyone else, every single researcher, professor or PhD student seemed to be running Windows -- me included.

    To give you an idea how weird that was to see around here, in my lab there are 10 people, undergrad, Master's, and PhD students, plus professor, and everyone but me has an Apple laptop. From what I've seen around, that sample is representative. At least we all use Linux on our desktop machines :)