The question that has been in the mind of millions for ages, ‘Is Earth unique and are we only living beings in the Universe?’ This question has been doing the rounds in the global science community for ages. Organisations like NASA and SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) has been working for all the possibilities of life. With the advancement of technology, this search has also intensified and the scientists have left no stone unturned.
New record! We’ve found 7 Earth-sized planets around a single star outside our solar system; 3 in habitable zone: https://t.co/GgBy5QOTpK pic.twitter.com/NEavRSXDU2
— NASA (@NASA) 22 February 2017
But till date, there has been no proof of any existence of aliens. But recently NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope found not one but seven Earth like plans that are revolving around a single star 40 light years away from earth. Of these seven planets, three planets are located in the ‘goldilocks zone’ and there is a high possibility of liquid water being present on them.
This announcement was made by NASA on twitter yesterday and already crossed 1,00,000 retweets. The star system has been named ‘TRAPPIST-1’ and is located just 40 light years away from Earth, which is comparatively close. NASA also added a 360 degrees virtual tour of one of the newly discovered planets, ‘TRAPPIST-1d’.
Take a 360° tour of TRAPPIST-1d, one of the Earth-sized plants in the newly discovered system ~40 light-years away: https://t.co/5mMKpRPcoc pic.twitter.com/RRuPiOleOe
— NASA (@NASA) 22 February 2017
Associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen, was thrilled about the discovery and its implications. He said, “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.”
This is a step closer to our search for alien life in the vast universe. Well, this leaves us with the famous dialogue from the movie ”Contact” that says, “I’ll tell you one thing about the universe, though. The universe is a pretty big place. It’s bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it’s just us… seems like an awful waste of space. Right?”
