This was exciting to see on CNN today:
Astronomers have found at least seven Earth-sized 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 surfaces and potentially support life.
The star? “… an ultracool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1.” And a friend points out that there’s now a web site dedicated to that star here. For a comparison of our star to Trappist-1:
Source: Trappist-1 website.
They promise to keep the site up to date. About all I can add is that this inevitably reminds me of the background of The Demon Princes novels by Jack Vance. Part of the human species is now hosted on the 26 planets of The Concourse, all in orbit around Rigel. It always seemed so unlikely to me; now it appears that it may not be impossible.
Cool.
