Sometimes the long shots pay off. Case in point: They latest findings from Belgian astronomer Michaël Gillon from the University of Liege and his TRAPPIST telescope. The TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope is designed to search for exoplanets where no one thought they existed.
Gillon and his team expanded the search for Earth-like exoplanets to small, relatively cool stars known as dwarfs, which were thought to be too small to have spawned planets from their accretionary disks.
And TRAPPIST hit gold not once, but three times in its first mission. Looking at a dwarf star 40 light-years away, now known as TRAPPIST-1, the team found three Earth-like exoplanets in its habitable zone — the area around a star where liquid water is possible and organic life could be found.
This is the first time any exoplanets have been discovered orbiting a star so small and dim, they say. The ...
