It seems that we are one step closer to finding alien life and maybe a future home for humanity. Scientists from NASA have found a new solar system filled with planets that look like the Earth and could even support life.
The group of seven planets, which orbits a star called Trappist-1, is 39 light years away from the Earth in the constellation of Aquarius(水瓶座). And three of them are in the "habitable zone" —the area around a star where water is most likely to be found. This is important because water is necessary for life.
"This is an amazing planetary(行星的) system - not only because we have found so many planets, but because they are all surprisingly similar in size to the Earth", astronomer Michael Gillon from the University of Liege in Belgium told The Independent.
Trappist-1 is a "dwarf star(矮星)" which is colder and shines dimmer than our sun. If a person were on one of the seven planets, everything would look a lot darker than usual. The amount of light heading toward our eyes would be about 200 times less than we get from the sun, according to The Independent.
Because of that, Trappist-1, together with many other dwarf stars, was never on the list of places where scientists looked for alien life. But Michael Gillon, lead researcher behind the discovery, decided to give dwarf stars a chance. He built a telescope in Chile to observe 60 of the closest dwarf stars, and it turned out that Trappist-1 was worthy of the effort.
The researchers hope that they can spend more time watching the newly found planets to learn more about them. Even though more research is needed before determining whether these planets could really support life, the discovery is still encouraging. It shows just how many Earth-size planets could be out there.
"[The discovery] gives us a hint that finding a second Earth is not just a matter of if, but when," NASA scientist Thomas Zurbuchen told The Telegraph.
