Three New Earths Just 40 Light Years Away

For anyone who’s ever dreamed of living on another Earth-like planet somewhere out in the universe, the odds just got a tiny bit better. According to a study published in the journal Nature, researchers have found three potentially habitable Earth-like worlds orbiting a super cool dwarf star, and it’s only, yes, only 40 light years away.

Now, we know these kinds of stories pop up frequently. It seems like every week we hear about some new place where life could possibly exist. But what makes this finding particularly noteworthy is that researchers were able to find three promising planets essentially at the same time and in the same proximity.

The Unlikely Star

The super cool dwarf star these planets orbit is known as Trappist-1. Funnily enough, this star wasn’t really expected to be a hub for planets because it’s at the very low end of what classifies as a star. It has about half the temperature and a tenth of the mass of our Sun.

However, as researcher Julian D., a postdoctoral associate with MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, points out, these tiny stars are actually quite common in the Milky Way, representing 25 to 50% of all stellar objects in the galaxy.

These small stars were largely overlooked until researcher Michael Gillan of the University of Liège in Belgium took a chance and decided to study the space around one of them. Over the course of 62 nights, he observed that shadows, like little eclipses, periodically interrupted the star’s usually steady stream of light, a sign that planets were passing in front of it.

Inside the Habitable Zone

The newly discovered planets are roughly the size of Earth. Based on the two inner planets’ proximity to Trappist-1, they are thought to receive about four times the radiation we get from the Sun, which suggests they are located in the habitable zone. Less is known about the third, outer planet, which receives twice the amount of radiation that Earth does, but it is also potentially within this zone.

The habitable zone is essentially the region around a star where the temperature of an orbiting planet, based on its proximity, could allow for liquid water on its surface. And as we know, water is the core ingredient for life as we understand it.

A Long Road Ahead

Of course, we won’t be making a trip to these planets anytime soon. These initial results are simply the beginning of a study that will continue for years. Researchers are already working on observations to see if the planets have water or methane molecules in their atmospheres.

While 40 light-years away may not seem far for a ship like the Starship Enterprise, with our current technology, it would take us millions of years to reach these worlds. Despite the incredible distance, these three planets are currently the best targets in our ongoing search for life beyond Earth and our own solar system.

It’s truly fascinating to think about. We may be able to calculate if these planets are habitable, but we really have no clue whether they are already occupied. There could literally be life, perhaps even intelligent life, already there! Could a research center on one of those planets be looking out into the universe right now and saying, “Hey, there’s a bluish planet that looks habitable, and it’s only 40 light-years away”?

If we had the technology to reach one of these worlds, and there was a decent chance it was habitable, would you volunteer to be part of the first group of humans to go and possibly colonize this new planet?