| NASA

/perks

jchaos you gonna watch it too?

Alas, I'm at work on a system still running Windows XP.

Streaming this is a pipe dream.

But I'm eager to hear any interesting news.

7 earth-sized planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1 (40 light-years away), with 3 in the habitable zone

the star is smaller than the sun (a red dwarf, if I heard correctly)

planets are probably tidally-locked

:/ Well, that complicates things.

REALLY complicates things...

the planets are close enough that the other planets are as big as our moon in their skies

one likely has water

"ultra-cool dwarf"

so the star is mostly emitting infrared light

all 7 pass between their star and us so we can see the dimming of the light

the planets orbit close enough that they gravitationally interact with each others' orbits

Sounds like a great stopover system, but with a heck of a lot of physics challenges. >_>

two innermost of the planets do not have hydrogen-helium atmospheres

4th planet is around the same size as earth

5th planet is likely water-rich

6th planet is largest

4th gets same amount of light as earth, 5th gets same amount as mars, 6th gets same amount as something between mars and asteroid belt

the James Webb space telescope will be able to analyze their atmospheres once it launches

Q&A already?

use #askNASA on twitter to ask live questions

no confirmation of water yet

ultra-cool dwarfs are very active when young so they don't know if the planets' atmospheres survived the star's youth

discoverers want to name them after Belgian beers

not likely to be any moons, but other planets are close enough to cause tides

dammit stream cut out and I missed a question

SETI has listened but didn't hear any signals from it

planets at least half a billion years old but no upper bound known

outermost planet orbits at around 0.05 AU

...damn that's a small system

1.5 day year for 1st planet, 20 days for 7th planet

.... Yeeeeeeeeeeeah.

planets likely formed farther out and migrated inward, so they likely have water ice

This sounds like a fun little system, but I wouldn't want to live there.

it's over?

the schedule said it would last until 2pm

huh

jchaos: it might be nice, but you're right it doesn't sound like a great place to live

they kept mentioning that because it's so close they'll be able to study it further, so I'm expecting to see more data trickle in over the next few years

/nodnods.

The fact that they're likely tidally locked means that there's going to be very narrow comfort zones on the planets.

yeah. it doesn't prevent life but it doesn't make it ideal either