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Scientists Discover Three Potentially Habitable Planets (mit.edu)

Scientists have discovered three Earth-sized planets that look ideally suited to search for signs of life beyond our solar system. A team of astronomers from MIT and the University of Liege detected three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star -- just 40 light years from Earth using a prototype telescope called TRAPPIST which is capable of looking at 60 nearby ultracool stars. NPR reports: The closest planet to the star orbits in about one and a half Earth days. From the planet's surface, the star would look like a reddish ball fixed to one spot in the sky. Scientists don't yet know the mass of the planets or what they're made of. Astronomers have discovered more than a thousand planets outside our solar system, but it's still rare to find ones that look promising in terms of habitability."These planets are Earth-sized, they are temperate -- we can't rule out the fact that they are habitable -- and they are well-suited for atmospheric studies," says Julien de Wit, a researcher at MIT.

2 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Trump, build that wall, now! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The earth needs a protective shell, before illegal aliens come from these worlds to take our jobs.

    Financing? Not a problem. Just make the aliens pay for it.

  2. Re:Only 40 years?? by npslider · · Score: 4, Funny

    No problem...

    "It's 235,100,000,000,000 miles to Planet X, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses."

    "Hit it!"