Discovering Another Earth: Why NASA's Latest Find, The 7 Earth-Like Planets, Matters?

For centuries, humans have traveled the universe far and wide in search of life. A recent discovery of earthlike planets in a system only 40 light years away from earth has introduced a new ray of hope in astronomers working to find life on planets other than earth.

According to Al Jazeera, the newly found planets are seven in number and are the part of the "Trappist-1" system. A team of researchers from the University of Liege, including international astronomers, deployed a set of both space and earth-based telescopes to come up with this stunning discovery. Three of the planets were revealed in 2016, leading to the discovery of an additional four this year. The astronomers are still in the process of calculating the distance of the planets from their star, which keeps them warm.

The researchers have termed the "Trappist-1" planetary system remarkable for quite a few reasons. Firstly, the star at the center of the system is much cooler and emits only five hundredths of one percent of the energy per second than that of the sun. Most of the light is in infrared energy, that is, beyond the limits of human eyesight. This leads the planets to occur closer to their star. The proximity of the Trappist-1 planets to each other also makes them complete one trip around their star within a meager one and a half days. Three of the planets interestingly revolve around their star at the right distance, generating the proper temperature for having water on them.

According to Time, the modern devices like satellites and telescopes installed by observatories play a very significant part in finding these types of planetary constellations. Kepler, termed as one of the best by the astrophysicists, looks for even the most undetectable dimming that occurs when a planet passes in front of its star. So far, Kepler has reportedly spotted 4706 confirmed or candidate planets this way.

When the astronomers are looking for life on any planet among the numerous ones, they look for the existence of an atmosphere on them. It helps to stream light from the star, getting diversified in various ways depending on the chemical composition, which in turn helps to find the existence of biosignature gasses like methane, oxygen or carbon dioxide on the planets.

The atmospheric studies are the most significant in finding the trace of life on any of the newly found planets. In October 2018, the James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to be launched, equipped with "spectroscopes" for conducting atmospheric studies.