Three New Planets Discovered Orbiting Nearby Dwarf Star Trappist-1

Belgian-led astronomers have reported to have discovered three Earth-sized planets around ultra-cool dwarf star that is less than forty light-years away from our planet.

The star is named Trappist-1 as it has been discovered by the Belgian telescope in Chile. It is located in the constellation Aquarius and is less than Jupiter in size.

This is the first time planets have been discovered around such type of star that is so faint to help astronomers to study the atmospheres of those.

Currently the astronomers are using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to study the three planets and soon the Hubble Space Telescope will join too.

Astronomers are trying to search for extraterrestrial life.

Until now exoplanet searchers targeted brighter and bigger stars, something similar to the sun.

Trappist telescope was built by University of Liege astronomers in Belgium to observe sixty of the nearest ultra-cool dwarf stars.

Lead study authors Michael Gillon writes, “Systems around these tiny stars are the only places where we can detect life on an Earth-sized exoplanet with our current technology.”

The orbit time of two planets has been understood and those are between 1.5 and 2.4 days around the Trappist-1 star. For the third one it is said to be somewhere between 4.5 and 73 days.

Gillon added the planets are 20 times to 100 times closer to the star compared to Earth’s distance from sun and the setup is similar to the moons of Jupiter.

The Hubble is awaited to join next week and unearth some more details about the three newly discovered planets.