NASA finds system of Earth-like exoplanets around tiny star

NASA study finds four new exoplanets around star Trappist-1

NASA planetary scientists announced they have discovered six potential life-supporting exoplanets.

More than 39 light years beyond our solar system, another star system has the potential for six or seven earthlike planets, according to a NASA study published Wednesday.

A group of astronomers discovered three exoplanets in March 2016 passing in front of dwarf star Trappist-1 and continued their hunt for more planets.

Recommended Videos



The group, led by astronomer Michael Gillon with the University of Liege in Belgium, revealed Wednesday that it found four more possibly rocky planets with sizes and masses similar to Earth's orbiting the small star.

Six of the seven planets orbiting Trappist-1 have temperatures low enough for liquid water to exist on their surfaces, according to the study.

The Hubble Space Telescope is scanning the planets' atmospheres right now to determine if they are rich in water, according to NASA.

Using ground-based telescopes and observations by NASA's Spitzer space telescope, the group will have to further study the seventh outermost planet to determine whether it is a similar composition to its possibly rocky counterparts.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, set to launch in 2018, will be the first telescope that will be able to see these planets.

Most importantly, James Webb will be able to look for signs of life like oxygen ozone methane, produced by life, NASA’s Spitzer Science Center manager Sarah Carey said.

"The best telescopes to study these worlds are yet to be invented," Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA said.

Trappist-1 is very small. Named for the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope used in discovering it, the star is an ultra-cool dwarf star only 8 percent of our sun’s mass and less than 12 percent of its radius. 

Unlike our solar system, you could see other planets very well from the ground on a Trappist-1 system planet, according to NASA.

"You would have a wonderful view of the other planets," Gillon said. "You would see them as we see the moon."

The study, published Wednesday in Nature, is the latest scientific proof that Earth is not a unique planet.

Before the Trappist-1 system, no more than two or three planets around a star had ever been discovered at one time.

"(The discovery) is a giant leap forward in habitable worlds," Carey said.

NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has discovered more than 1,284 exoplanets during its mission. Not all are within the habitable zone of their stars, but a handful are rocky, warm planets.

Approximately 44 exoplanets have been discovered to be Earth size or with potentially habitable conditions, according to the University of Puerto Rico Planetary Habitability Laboratory.

Trappist is a Belgium-led project devoted to finding exoplants and small bodies. The ground observatory is located at the European Space La Silla Observatory in Chil and at Oukaimden Observatory in Marocco.