Three New Earth-sized Planets Found Just 40 Light-Years Away

Three more potentially Earthlike worlds have been discovered in our galactic backyard, announced online today by the European Southern Observatory. Researchers using the 60cm TRAPPIST telescope at ESO's La Silla observatory in Chile have identified three Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting a star just 40 light-years away. The star, originally classified as 2MASS J23062928-0502285 but now known as TRAPPIST-1, is an dim "ultracool" brown dwarf only .05% as bright as our Sun . Located in the constellat...