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Wednesday 22 February 2017

The Universe in 101 words: What's the fuss about TRAPPIST-1 ?




NASA has found a whole solar system of Earth like worlds, around a star called TRAPPIST-1

So what's the fuss about?
  • Only three of these worlds are in TRAPPIST-1's habitable zone, but all have some potential for liquid water.
  • It's a tiny solar system - it's outer edge would be inside the orbit of Mercury. So these potentially habitable worlds would be very close, appearing as big as the Moon in each others skies.
  • The star itself is an ultra cool red dwarf, which will live for trillions of years
It makes our solar system look pretty empty by comparison...


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