-- Reprinted from the WeChat "Astronomical Diagram" public account

NASA held a press conference at 1:00 p.m. EST on February 22 (2:00 a.m. Beijing time on the 23rd) to announce that the Spitzer Space Telescope (Spitzer) has discovered the first planetary system containing seven Earth-sized planets for the first time. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Three of the seven planets are located in habitable zones near the parent star, and one of the rocky planets may contain liquid water. This discovery could be an important step in finding a suitable environment to live in.

The planetary system, known as Trappist-1, is located in the constellation Aquarius, about 40 light-years (378 trillion kilometers) from Earth.

Due to their density, all Trappist-1 planets are likely to be rocky. Further observation will help determine whether they are rich in water, or even liquid.

The outermost mass of the seven planets has yet to be assessed, and scientists believe it may be an icy "snowball", although further observations are needed.

The star at the center of Trappist-1 – classified as an ultra-cold dwarf – is so cool as our Sun that water can exist on planets very close to the star.

The orbital radius of all seven planets is less than the distance between Mercury and the Sun. The planets are also very close to each other. If a person stands on one of them, he can see the surface features and clouds of the nearby stars in the distance as if we were seeing the moon from the earth.

It is possible for seven planets to have an equal rotation period to their orbital period, which means that the planet is always facing the star on the same side and the night is eternal on the other side. It also means that their weather patterns will be completely different from those of Earth.

The results of this study will be published in Nature in the paper "SeventemperateterrestrialplasaroundthenearbyUltracooldWarfstartrappist-1".

Author's Note:

I was very excited to read this news in the morning, and when I was thinking about the setting of the fateful star, I imagined that half of them were spirits of the eternal night, and half of them were humans of the eternal day.

The world of darkness and light, warm in the dark, and dirty in the light, is it easier to describe the contrast of human nature.

Later, considering that this setting was too far away from reality, I was worried that it would not be easy for readers to accept it, so I gave up.

Now science has once again confirmed that as long as human beings can imagine it, it seems to exist.

This brings me to a bold point:

What is this world exactly?

Could it be the result of our collective imagination.

……