NASA discovers new solar system full of earth-like planets

NASA reports that it could support alien life.

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Nasa announced scientists have discovered a new solar system filled with seven planets that look like Earth and could support life. At least three of the planets represent what are know to astronomers as “holy grail” planets.

“Holy grail” planets refers to planets that sit within the “temperate zone” and are the right temperature to allow alien life to flourish. They are also capable of having oceans, which also suggests life could flourish on them. Until now, no other star system that has been found contains so many Earth-sized and rocky planets, that could possibly contain alien life.

The new solar system is named TRAPPIST-1 and reports show that even if life isn’t ever found near the system, life might eventually develop there. According to Ignas AG Snellen from the Leiden Observatory, this is due to the star being relatively young and will live for 10 trillion years, more than 700 times longer than the Universe has existed so far; which is arguably enough time for life to evolve.

Scientists first found the star TRAPPIST-1 in 2010 after monitoring the smallest stars close to the Sun. They have since been watching out for those transits and after seeing 34 of them clearly, they proposed that they can be attributed to the seven new planets.

An artist’s illustration of what the holy grail planets could look like.

If a human were on one of the seven planets, everything would look a lot darker than usual. This is because the amount of light heading to your eye would be about 200 times less than you get from the sun, and would be comparable to what you can see at sunset.

Work is still continuing to gather a greater understanding of the discovery, but researchers believe that the planets have large oceans, are temperate and other conditions that could make way for alien life.