New worlds: 3 Earth-like planets ‘nearby’
An artist’s impression shows an imagined view from the surface of one of three recently discovered planets that could sustain water and life. Astronomers announced Monday that temperatures are similar to those on Earth and Venus.
Our science fiction dreams of Martians may never come true, but three earth-like planets discovered orbiting a nearby star have potential life and water, astronomers announced Monday.
The sizes and temperatures of these worlds are similar to those of Earth and Venus, and hold the best promise yet for the search for life outside the solar system.
All three planets may have regions with temperatures that are within a range suitable for sustaining liquid water and life, according to the report published Monday in the British journal Nature.
The three planets orbit around an “ultracool” dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth, or some 240 trillion miles away. In astronomical terms, that’s pretty close considering our own Milky Way galaxy spans 100,000 light years.
Since the planets are outside our solar system, they are called exoplanets.
“This really is a paradigm shift with regards to the planet population and the path towards finding life in the Universe,” said Emmanuël Jehin, a co-author of the new study and an astronomer at the University of Liège in Belgium.
“So far, the existence of such ‘red worlds’ orbiting ultra-cool dwarf stars was purely theoretical, but now we have not just one lonely planet around such a faint red star but a complete system of three planets,” he said.
The group of international astronomers from MIT, NASA, the University California at San Diego, the University of Liège and other institutions made the discovery.