Seven earth-sized planets discovered

A group of international scientists have made a tremendous discovery- they found a small/dwarf star, called Trappist 1, only 40 light years from the Earth which had at least seven rocky planets,all about the size of Earth or smaller, with the potential to harbour water and life!

The discovery of the planets was announced at the NASA headquarters in Washington DC, and published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

Best bet for life elsewhere

NASA has always been on the lookout for the existence of life on any other planet in space. Towards that goal, this latest discovery is hope-giving as the small star with its seven planets not only resemble earth but also fall in the “habitable zone,”meaning water can exist on their surface!

“Looking for life elsewhere, this system is probably our best bet as of today,” said Brice-Olivier Demory, professor at the University of Bern’s Centre for Space and Habitability and one of the authors of a paper said.

The scientists also revealed that future telescopes- the James Webb Space Telescope, which is to succeed the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, “will have the possibility to detect the signature of ozone if this molecule is present in the atmosphere of one of these planets”.

Olive Demory further said that ozone “could be an indicator for biological activity on the planet”.

NASA associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen went on to add, “Finding another Earth-like planet isn’t a matter of if but when.”