Can The TRAPPIST-1 Planets Host Life? The Possibilities Say, It Could Be! Know These Interesting Facts
The latest solar system discovery by Spitzer Space Telescope of NASA, TRAPPIST-1 and its planets bring the possibility of life on the planets. It is known that some factors are making planets livable or not. The distance from its star, the average temperature at the surface, the presence of favorable atmosphere etc., plays a major role in the existence of life.
The TRAPPIST-1 planets are tightly packed than the solar system and almost all of the seven planets in the system are in the size range of earth. The innermost planet and outermost planets in the system are almost 30 times closer than Earth and Venus at its largest separation. Also, all the planets are much closer to their star and the distance from the Sun to Mercury is more while comparing to the distance from the farthest planet in the system to its star. So what makes the possibility of life in the system?
All the #TRAPPIST1 planets compared to our solar system, plus multimedia is here:https://t.co/dUN4rZuROc pic.twitter.com/Uw4SPGFsul
— NASA Spitzer (@NASAspitzer) February 22, 2017
It is none other than the feature of its star. The size of the star is slightly larger than the size of planet Jupiter. It is also almost 2,000 times less bright than the sun. It is an ultracool dwarf star and this is the reason the planets are tightly packed in the system. Due to this, the star radiates less heat energy and the planets fall under habitable ones with the initial observations. However, there are some factors that give a serious challenge to this.
First of all, the planets are tidally locked and this means that there is almost no rotation in its axis and hence only one side would be facing their star. This could lead to the fact that the side facing the star could be hotter and the darker side could be extremely colder, a potential roadblock for the existence of life. Also, the initial suggestions say that no puffy atmosphere like earth in the inner planets, which means water can't exist in liquid form. However, further findings may change this initial conclusion.
There are some interesting factors related to TRAPPIST-1 system. From the surface of these planets, other planets in the system can be viewed similarly to how Moon is viewed from Earth. Some of the planets would be viewed at almost two times the size of the Moon from the Earth.
