It looks like man’s perennial quest to find intelligent life and earth-like planets in the Universe has finally arrived a crossroad.
Space scientists are working on a recently uncovered evidence which indicates the existence of Earth-like planets at a considerably nearer distance of just 40 light-years from us.
As per the new findings, three potential candidates have been discovered and is hosted in a system lit by a brown dwarf – sized a bit over our Jupiter.
Artist’s impression shows how the dwarf star would look like from the surface of a planet orbiting it. Image courtesy: ESA
According to the international team of astronomers who found the planetary system orbiting ultra-cool brown dwarf named Trappist-1, temperature and other atmospheric conditions in these planets might be just right to host alien life forms.
Trappist-1 otherwise known as ‘2MASS J23062928-0502285′ is a dim cool star and is approximately just one-eighth the size of our sun.
While most exoplanet hunts are based around brighter stars out there, Michaël Gillon of the University of Liège, Belgium and his team decided to survey 60 dwarf stars near to our solar system.
To study the system further, the group is hoping to point more telescopes on the ground in its direction, along with observations from more space telescopes like Hubble.
