NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed seven Earth-size planets orbiting around a single star, researchers announced Feb. 22, 2017. And the breakthrough doesn’t stop there: At least three of these planets are located in the star’s “habitable zone,” meaning the conditions exist for liquid water, key to life as we know it on Earth, to be present on those planets.
The discovery sets a new record for the greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system.
“Answering the question ‘are we alone’ is a top science priority and finding so many planets like these for the first time in the habitable zone is a remarkable step forward toward that goal,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement.
This artist’s concept shows what each of the planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system look like, based on information about their sizes, masses and orbital distances.