NASA reveals Trappist-1, a habitable star system

Trappist-1 has seven Earth-like planets in its system, and three of them are in the habitable zone, meaning they could harbor life as we know it.

[Pissedoffpeasant]

Ok now just build a warp drive so we can get there in less than a billion years

[Mindovermatter]

yay !!they are finally done with the new composites!!

[mhill]

I was more excited that they might be announcing the discovery of "Planet 9". Or whatever planet that was hypothesized based on unexplained discrepancies on Neptune's orbit and objects in the Kuiper belt or whatever. It's theorized it could be a massive body way outside our current model of our solar system, with like a 15, 000 year orbital period.

[CoderMonkeyNathan]

There might be 3 planets with approximately the right composition in the habitable zone of the system. But until we get there and see first hand it is not much more than optimistic speculation. There's still a lot of things that could make them uninhabitable.

[jaimenmaisuria]

Can't wait until we get there in 500 years time!

[PUERTORICANBITCOIN]

OK signed me in so when can we go there?

[jamesgjt]

just about 40 light year far away... that is like if i can travel 4 times of speed of light and it just take me 10 years to get there....

[Natetaube]

The fastest man made object is the Helios 1 spacecraft orbiting the Sun. It only made it to that speed through a number of gravitational slingshots, but hey, let's say that's our current best technology.

It travels at 247, 510 km/hr.

40 light years is a distance of 378, 429, 218, 903, 232 km (378.4 trillion kilometers).

So if you just plug that into good ol' Distance = Rate * Time, solve for time,

(378, 429, 218, 903, 232 km) / (247, 510 km/hr) = Time

Time = 1, 528, 945, 169.50116 hours, which converts to 174, 537.12 years.

Which is why interstellar travel will be a big hurdle to leap over before it becomes a reality (which I believe it will, despite the E=mc^2 equation - that equation, like any other equation, is just a model that works over a finite series of numbers - like the sound barrier)

But at current fastest travel, 40 light years would take 174, 537.12 Earth-years.

[eobardthawne]

so awesome let's hope there is life 👽🙏

[mhill]

It's great to capture and measure light from the EM spectrum to determine some physical/chemical properties. But I guess we'll never know if there was life on those planets. Sending a rover there would take how long? If we've never even been remotely close to sending a satellite to the nearest exo-star 4 light years away, let alone get to this one 40 light years away. Damn. And even if we could get there, it would take 40 years for a signal to instruct the rover to do something, and another 40 years to send a signal back. An 80 year communication lag. Oh geezus lol

[AlimShaikh-hpkd]

Mr. Can you when announcing plz show us some real footage plz and not any enhanced animation or graphic photos..

[Natetaube]

@Serder Han

To get started NASA's Orion project could only go the speed of 32, 186.88 km/h. Which is 215, 324 km/h slower than Helios 1. And what do you mean by "lasers"? I hope that, in my life time there will be intergalactic space travel. but from where we stand today we're a long way from that coming into view.

So let's do the math again.

25% the speed of light would equal to 269, 813, 212.2 km/h (167, 654, 157.35 mph)

So 40 Light years is a distance of 378, 429, 218, 903, 232 km (235, 145, 014, 927, 344.3 Miles)

Again if we plug in the Distance = Rate * Time

(378, 429, 218, 903, 232km) / (269, 813, 212.2 km/h) = Time

Time = 1, 402, 560 hours, which converts to 160.11 Earth-years.

That would be great and all but at our current technology, The Helios 1, We're only traveling at .000825% the speed of light. So we'd have to make a huge jump in speed.

But there is another ship we could test. Scheduled to launch in 2018, Solar Probe Plus would travel at 724, 000 km/h Which blows Helios 1 away... Le's get back into the math xD

Considering all the numbers above are true I'm gonna save time and just plug the Solar Probe Plus' speed into the equation.

Distance = Rate * Time

(378, 429, 218, 903, 232km) / (724, 000 km/h) = Time

Time = 522, 692, 291.3 Hours, Which converts to 59, 668.07 Years. Which is 65% faster than Helios. Amazing! In time I hope we get to the that number of 25% the speed of light. We need more funding to go into space programs. They are what make our world smarter.

[AskMeWhen]

They really should've picked someone else to do the announcement.

[phm]

I find it wired in a way that CNET's comment section is full of conspiracy theories.

[varunsingh]

Letter 'e' Planet looks like 'E'arth, coincidence?

[alpzgmz]

Awesome! when do we go to conquer the natives?

[CodeMerk]

Eh, they only found Kobol, nothing to worry about...

[daddyscrapes]

Sin can't go no where near those planets

[Iamreallycoolful]

they're really out of this world! I'm so excited and I may space out! they really are stars! I'm really over the moon!

[TerronSingletary]

So even if we figure out how to travel at the speed of light, it will take 40 years to get there! I guess we better take better care of the planet we have!