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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: 2) by c0lo on Friday February 24 2017, @12:05AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 24 2017, @12:05AM (#470965) Journal

    If we find life outside of this solar system, chances are good we'll find it here first.

    Come to that, slim chances, I'd say.

    With a temperature of 2550K at the surface, the emission spectrum of TRAPPIST-1 will be too weak in UV - one would need other forms of energy to (e.g.) break down the nitrogen molecule to make proteins.
    The small mass of the star cause the planets to be close one to the other, slim chances for moons (thus significant tides).
    BTW, I read that all 7 are very likely tidaly locked [wikipedia.org] - another major obstacle for life to appear.

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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday February 24 2017, @02:29AM

    by bob_super (1357) on Friday February 24 2017, @02:29AM (#470992)

    On the other hand, given their proximity and their insanely fast orbits, living on one of these has to be quite a show.

    If it's even remotely habitable, we can send life there. Bacteria and simple plants are a lot more resilient and less needy than us.

    Finding life when we get there would be a mess. We really don't have a great track record of handling existing lifeforms when we get somewhere new.