Cape canaveral, Florida. —
Astronomers looking for life outside the solar system may have to look at a faint star. A Belgian-
On Monday, the leading group reported three earth discoveries.
Large and small planets orbiting
Cool Dwarf under 40 light-years away.
This is the first time a planet has been found around this type of star.
It opens up new and rich fields for the search for alien life.
Because the star is very close and very weak, astronomers can study the atmosphere of these three extratropical exoplanets and eventually look for signs of life.
In fact, they are already using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope for atmospheric observations.
The Hubble Space Telescope will join next week.
Julian de Vette, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that in general, this is a "successful combination" because he is looking for chemical traces of life outside the solar system.
The author of the study, published by the journal Nature.
Star with problemsnamed Trappist-
After the Belgian telescope found in Chile
Jupiter is the only one in Aquarius.
The search targets for other exoplanets are larger, brighter stars, more like our sun, but in these cases the star light will be so bright that it will wash away the features of the planet.
In contrast, like Trappist, the cool dwarf that emits infrared light
1. It is easier to discover the potential world.
University of Liege, Belgium astronomers
Lead authors of the study Michael Gillon and Emmanuel Jehin-
The Trappist telescope was built to observe the recent 60 Super
Cool dwarf star
De Wit noted in an email that this adventure effort was rewarded.
"The systems around these tiny stars are the only places where we can detect life on Earth --
"Using our current technology to measure the size of the outer planet," Giron said in a statement . ".
"So if we want to find life elsewhere in the universe, that's where we should start looking.
"The distance between the two exoplanets is 1. 5 and 2.
Run 4 days on Trappist track1 star.
The exact orbital time of the third planet is not clear, but it is between 4.
5 days 73 days
According to Gillen, this makes the planet nearly 20 times to 100 times as close to the sun as the Earth.
He added that this setup is more similar in size to the Jupiter satellite than our solar system.
Although the innermost two planets are very close to the stars, it only showers the Earth several times the energy it receives from our own sun.
The third exoplanet farther away from the Earth may receive much less radiation than the Earth.
Astronomers speculate that the two internal exoplanets may have pockets of life, while the third exoplanets may actually belong to habitable areas --
The property is located not far from a star in order to accommodate the water and possibly life.
According to de Wit, Spitzer and Hubble should answer whether the exoplanets have a large and clear atmosphere.
If molecules exist, they can also detect water and methane.
The future observatory, including NASA's James Web Space Telescope to be launched on 2018, should find more details.
Gilon and his colleagues identified the three exoplanets by looking at the periodic decline in the infrared signal sent by Trappist
1 star, about 36 lightyears away. A single light-
It's about 6 trillion miles a year.
Astronomers conducted the survey last year using the transit planet and planetary Telescope (Trappist.
It is considered to be a prototype of a broader European project that will expand the search for a potentially habitable world to more than 500cool stars.
This upcoming project is called speculation.
Search for short names of habitable planets, Beyond SuperCool Stars.