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Friday, February 24, 2017

Exoplanets Around TRAPPIST-1

Yeah, you've probably heard the news already. It's been everywhere. Recently, scientists announced the discovery of a seven planet system orbiting the red dwarf TRAPPIST-1, all of which are Earth sized and likely made of rock, and three of which are solidly in the habitable zone. What makes this system especially inviting for future study is the dimness of the star. TRAPPIST-1 is tiny and incredibly faint, the midday sky on the orbiting worlds would only be as bright as the sky at sunset on Earth. Most of the heat comes in infrared, and any plants on the surface would be black instead of green. There may very well be habitable planets, but they won't be like Earth.

Anyway, a dim star makes it much, much easier to study the orbiting planets. Planets glow, but not by much, and they pale in comparison to their stars normally. It's like trying to study a firefly floating next to a floodlight from a mile away. It's difficult. But here, instead of a floodlight, we have a 60 watt bulb. It makes life that much easier.

Anyway, I'm sure we'll be hearing more about the TRAPPIST-1 system in the future, especially when the James Webb Telescope goes up in 2018. But for now, we'll just have to imagine what standing on some of those worlds would be like.

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