Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Ultracool Trappist destination

I'm looking forward to seeing who signs up for the 40-year voyage. I would do it in a heartbeat, of course. It's possible that the natural event of my demise upon arrival would be viewed as a bonus. It's not really a surprise that the location for exploration will be the Ultracool Trappist system. Those monks were the hippest ever.

Astronomers have found at least seven Earth-like planets orbiting the same star 40 light-years away, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The findings were also announced at a news conference at NASA Headquarters in Washington. 

This discovery outside of our solar system is rare because the planets have the winning combination of being similar in size to Earth and being all temperate, meaning they could have water on their surface and potentially support life. 

The seven exoplanets were all found in tight formation around an ultracool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1. Estimates of their mass also indicate that they are rocky planets, rather than being gaseous like Jupiter.