Ever wondered if there's life outside Earth? Well, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) just revealed that another system houses seven Earth-like exoplanets which also revolves around one star just like Earth.
On Feb. 23, NASA released an official statement that they found the seven exoplanets through its Spitzer Space Telescope. Through the images that the telescope captured, it was found out that three of these exoplanets are considered to support life with the existence of liquid water. NASA also clarified that it's actually possible for all the seven exoplanets to have liquid water depending on their atmospheric conditions.
This exoplanet system is actually coined by NASA as the TRAPPIST-1 which was named after the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope. NASA has long been studying and exploring the space for other signs of life, and it's a great leap in history to discover a new system that is just 40 light-years away from Earth that also shows habitable zones.
NASA also revealed to the public that aside from the habitable zones found on the TRAPPIST-1 system, the exoplanets there are very Earth-like as most are just near and comparable to the size of Earth. Just like Earth, the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets also revolve around a star that is just near the constellation Aquarius.
Although the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets have their star just like Earth, NASA also stated that their star is cooler than the sun. Because of this, it allows the presence of liquid water in the three habitable exoplanets despite their distance to the star.
In a statement on Fox News, Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, shared that this discovery yields to NASA's goal of answering the question "are we alone?" Zurbuchen also added that this is the first time that so many exoplanets resembling Earth were found out.
Scientists have long been in search for answers to their curiosities on what lies outside the solar system. Aside from the discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets, it was previously found out that there was a planet resembling Earth called the Proxima b way back last year.
