Count 'em. 7 earth size planets circle Trappist 1

Wednesday announcement (sorry I don't remember where I saw this coming). space.com

Astronomers have never seen anything like this before: Seven Earth-size alien worlds orbit the same tiny, dim star, and all of them may be capable of supporting life as we know it, a new study reports.

"Looking for life elsewhere, this system is probably our best bet as of today," study co-author Brice-Olivier Demory, a professor at the Center for Space and Habitability at the University of Bern in Switzerland, said in a statement.

The exoplanets circle the star TRAPPIST-1, which lies just 39 light-years from Earth — a mere stone's throw in the cosmic scheme of things. So speculation about the alien worlds' life-hosting potential should soon be informed by hard data, study team members said.​

awesome! I heard this earlier today.

Trappist 1e orbits its sun every 6 days. Looks like an interesting place to visit.

I remember when Serenity came out, people found the solar system hard to believe. Now it looks like we might have found something even more remarkable.

This is exciting. If we launch a probe now, we'll be seeing results in only....


500,000 to 1,000,000 years...


It's really interesting that the data from the continued monitoring of this solar system will be publicly available. I'm hoping the crowdsourcing will help sort through the data.

I just heard about this, this is great news.

Holy crap, they're close together. TRAPPIST-1e and -1f have orbits that are only 0.009 AUs apart. That's about 850,000 miles. This is only about 4 times the Earth-Moon distance, and these are the distances between PLANETS!

If my understanding is correct, one or other of the new telescopes that will be launched in the next decade will be able to examine the light from this system and detect chemical signatures which would tell us if there are any traces of the kind of stuff produced by life...

A probe isn't realistic but we certainly could learn a lot using this and other techniques.

If any of these planets have oceans I wonder what would be the tidal effects of other planets in such close proximity?

I find "e" to be highly interesting. A little bit larger than Earth but significantly less massive. To me this might indicate that its core if iron like Earths is far, far smaller than ours.

They would have to be, I think.

For an interesting essay on how long it would take to reach Alpha Centauri (those poor Robinsons) that is 4.3 light years away, here's one from Universe Today from September 2016.

We’ve all asked this question at some point in our lives: How long would it take to travel to the stars? Could it be within a person’s own lifetime, and could this kind of travel become the norm someday? There are many possible answers to this question – some very simple, others in the realms of science fiction. But coming up with a comprehensive answer means taking a lot of things into consideration.

Unfortunately, any realistic assessment is likely to produce answers that would totally discourage futurists and enthusiasts of interstellar travel. Like it or not, space is very large, and our technology is still very limited. But should we ever contemplate “leaving the nest”, we will have a range of options for getting to the nearest Solar Systems in our galaxy.
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Full article

And the news keeps getting better!

Just watched an interesting video:

http://www.trappist.one/

I remember reading that from the surface of one of these planets, whichever planet you were standing on, from the surface the nearest neighbouring planets would be large in the sky. Makes me think of how Spock Prime saw Vulcan in the Delta Vegan sky in that scene from Abrams' 2009 Trek flick.

Time to develop the antimatter sail.

Pictures!

All I saw were black, white and grey squares!

The prime real estate around TRAPPIST-1.

I'll be honest, I don't give a rip whether there is alien life (intelligent life that is) anywhere in the universe. What I want are planets that can already or with advanced technology be altered to support long term human habitation (colonies).

I see one of space explorations primary purposes to find new homes for humanity and help humanity spread beyond Earth.

I remember reading something about nano probes being technically feasible and able to travel fairly close to the speed of light.

More feasible to send at extremely high speeds because of their extremely low mass.

Unfortunately that option doesn't exist for sending humans.

So, space imperialism and xenocide. Nice.

Do you admire the Borg?

Who said anything about "xenocide"?

I doubt anyone would put "cide" at the end of eliminating alien moss and algae.

Which are in the habitable zone?

7

With nuclear pulse propulsion, capable of propelling a craft to about 10% of C, that could be got down to a mere 390 years. Well, 390 years for the probe to get there, another 39 for the data to come back. So 429 years. Which, if human life extension tech (retarding the ageing process) pans out, would mean that some of the babies born today might just live to see it.

What about slowing the probe down once it gets there?

We would get more data sooner with unmanned probes positioned 1,000 to 2,200 AU from Earth that used Sol as a gravitational lens.

I've read that according to theories, using the gravitational lensing effect would result in us being able to detect objects the size of building on exo planets.

Then you have to carry the fuel to slow down...which means you have to make a bigger, heavier craft to accelerate that extra load for the journey.

Much more economical for the probe to breeze through the destination solar system and gather data as it passes.

Well, there's what the laws of physics allow, and there's what's practical to actually build. For instance, physics probably allows for warp drives to exist; engineering practical ones may be impossible.

In any event, consider that the Voyager 1 and 2 space probes are 114/139 A.U.s from the sun, respectively, and it took them four decades to get there. Setting up gravitational lens observatories out at 1000-2200 AUs would not only be an enormous technical challenge, it would also take much longer than a human lifespan to realize.