LONDON ¨C Only 39 light-years away, astronomers have found seven planets circling a very small ¡°red dwarf¡± star called Trappist-1. All seven are in or near what we call the ¡°Goldilocks zone¡°: not too hot, not too cold, but just right for water to remain liquid on the planet. So we all speculate once again, but a little more bravely this time, about whether some of these planets might be home to life.
Not only are three of Trappist-1¡¯s planets dead center in the Goldilocks zone; the other four are on the fringes of the habitable zone. And they are all big enough ¡ª from half Earth¡¯s size to slightly bigger than our home planet ¡ª to retain an atmosphere for billions of years.
That¡¯s long enough for life to evolve on one or more of them. It¡¯s probably even long enough for complex life forms to evolve there, as it did on Earth.
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