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European employee missing with 100 million dollars

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judge on Friday ordered Volkswagen to pay a $2.8 billion criminal penalty in the United States for cheating on diesel emissions tests, blessing a deal negotiated by the government for a "massive fraud" orchestrated by the German automaker.

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Beef With Soulja Is The Worst Game On The Apple Store

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Astronomers discover 7 Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby star

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Story highlights

Astronomers have found at least seven Earth-sized planets orbiting the same star 40 light-years away, according to a study publishedWednesdayin the journal Nature. The findings were also announced at a news conference at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

This discovery outside of our solar system is rare because the planets have the winning combination of being similar in size to Earth and being all temperate, meaning they could have water on theirsurfaces and potentially support life.

"This is the first time that so many planets of this kind are found around the same star," said Michaël Gillon, lead study author and astronomer at the University of Liège in Belgium.

The seven exoplanets wereall found in tight formation around an ultracool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1. Estimates of their mass also indicate that they are rocky planets, rather than being gaseous like Jupiter. Three planets are in the habitable zone of the star, known as TRAPPIST-1e, f and g, and may even have oceans on the surface.

The researchers believe that TRAPPIST-1f in particular is the best candidate for supporting life. It's a bit cooler than Earth, but could be suitable with the right atmosphere and enough greenhouse gases.

If TRAPPIST-1 sounds familiar, that's because these researchers announcedthe discovery of three initial planets orbiting the samestar in May. The newresearch increased that number to seven planets total.

"I think we've made a crucial step towards finding if there is life out there," said Amaury Triaud, one of the study authors and an astronomer at the University of Cambridge. "I don't think any time before we had the right planets to discover and find out if there was (life). Here, if life managed to thrive and releases gases similar to what we have on Earth, we will know."

Life may begin and evolve differently on other planets, so finding the gases that indicate life is key, the researchers added.

"This discovery could be a significant piece in the puzzle of finding habitable environments, places that are conducive to life," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "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."

And as we've learned from studying and discovering exoplanets before, where there is one, there are more, said Sara Seager, professor of planetary science and physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Seager and other researchers are encouraged by the discovery of this system because it improves our chances of finding another habitable planet, like Earth, in the future, by knowing where to look.

What we know

The planets are so close to each other and the star that there areseven of them within a space five times smaller than the distance from Mercury to our sun. This proximity allows the researchers to study the planets in depth as well, gaining insight about planetary systems other than our own.

Starting closest to the star and moving out, the planets have respective orbits from one and a half to nearly 13 Earth days. The orbit of the farthest planet is still unknown.

Standing on the surface of one of the planets, you would receive 200 times less light than you get from the sun, but you would still receive just as much energy to keep you warm since the star is so close. It would also afford some picturesque views, as the other planets would appear in the sky as big as the moon (or even twice as big).

On TRAPPIST-1f, the star would appear three times as big as the sun in our sky. And because of the red nature of the star, the light would be a salmon hue, the researchers speculate.

The researchers believe the planets formed together further from the star. Then, they moved into their current lineup. This is incredibly similar Jupiter and its Galilean moons.

Like the moon, the researchers believe the planets closest to the star are tidally locked. This means that the planets always face one way to the star. One side of the planet is perpetually night, while the other is always day.

Based on preliminary climate modeling, the researchers believe that the three planets closest to the star may be too warm to support liquid water, while the outermost planet, TRAPPIST-1h, is probably too distant and cold to support water on the surface. But further observation is needed to know for sure.

How the discovery was made

TRAPPIST-1 barely classifies as a star at half the temperature and a tenth the mass of the sun. It is red, dim and just a bit larger than Jupiter. But these tiny ultracool dwarf stars are common in our galaxy.

They were largely overlooked until Gillon decided to study the space around one of these dwarfs.

The researchers used a telescope called TRAPPIST (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope) to observe its starlight and changes in brightness. The team saw shadows, like little eclipses, periodically interrupting the steady pattern of starlight. This is called transiting. The shadows indicated planets, and further observation confirmed them.

In July, the team was able to determine that two of the closest planets to the stars had atmospheres that were more compact and comparable to those of Earth, Venus and Mars by observing starlight through the planets' atmosphere.

By using a global network ground-based telescopes like TRAPPIST and space-based telescopes like Spitzer, the researchers continued looking toward the TRAPPIST system and were able to determine the orbital periods, distances from their star, radius and and masses of the planets.

What's next

Over the next decade, the researchers want to define the atmosphere of each planet, as well as to determine whether they truly do have liquid water on the surface and search for signs of life.

Although 40 light-years away doesn't sound too far, it would take us millions of years to reach this star system. But from a research perspective, it's a close opportunity and the best target to search for life beyond our solar system.

"If we learn something now, it can determine if we looked in the right place," Gillon said.

In 2018, the James Webb Space Telescope will launch and be positioned 1 million miles from Earth with an unprecedented view of the universe. It can observe large exoplanets and detect starlight filtered through their atmosphere.

The researchersare also searching for similar star systems to conduct more atmospheric research. Four telescopes named SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) based in Chile willsurvey the southern sky for this purpose.

This star system will probably outlive us because this type of star evolves so slowly. When our sun dies, TRAPPIST-1 will still be a young star and will live for another trillion years, Gillon said. After we are gone, if there is another part of the universe for life to carry on, it may be in the TRAPPIST-1 system.

"This is the most exciting result I have seen in the 14 years of Spitzer operations," said Sean Carey, manager of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California. "Spitzer will follow up in the fall to further refine our understanding of these planets so that the James Webb Space Telescope can follow up. More observations of the system are sure to reveal more secrets."

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Astronomers discover 7 Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby star | CNN

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Astronomers have found at least seven Earth-sized planets orbiting the same star 40 light-years away, according to a study publishedWednesdayin the journal Nature. The findings were also announced at a news conference at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

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Barnwell's 5 NFC South moves: Panthers rebuild their backfield

Carolina finally has a chance to get out from under RB Jonathan Stewart's hefty deal. Here are five offseason moves that would improve the Falcons, Panthers, Saints and Buccaneers.

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A bomb blast in an upscale shopping centre in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore killed at least 10 people today, a provincial government spokesman said, the latest attack in a surge of violence that has shaken the country.

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LAHORE, Pakistan A bomb blast in an upscale shopping centre in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore killed at least 10 people on Thursday, a provincial government spokesman said, the latest attack in a surge of violence that has shaken the country.

"It was a bomb blast with a huge sound impact that smashed the windows of almost all the buildings around," said Punjab government spokesman Malik Mohammad Khan.

He said the blast caused a huge crater and authorities were investigating the exact "nature and motives" of the blast. Punjab police spokesman Nayab Haider said the explosion was caused by a bomb that was detonated either remotely or by timer.

Pakistan has been struck by a wave of militant attacks in recent weeks which have killed at least 130 people. One attack at a Sufi shrine in southern Sindh province killed 90 people.

Rescue officials said security forces cordoned off the site of Thursday's blast, in a residential neighbourhood which also houses banks and coffee shops, after what one bank worker described as a frightening explosion.

"We left the building and saw that the motor-bikes parked outside were on fire and all the windows in the surrounding buildings were shattered," eyewitness Mohammad Khurram told Reuters.

Reports of a second explosion in the city turned out to be a tyre blow-out, a government official said.

Thursday's bombing was the second attack in Lahore in two weeks. A suicide bombing on Feb. 13 killed at least 13 people at a protest near the provincial assembly.

Government and military officials have vowed to hunt down militants across the country and Pakistan's border with Afghanistan has been shut down due to security concerns.

After the shrine bombing, Pakistani security forces said they had killed more than 100 suspected militants in targeted campaigns across the country.

(Writing by Saad Sayeed; Editing by Nick Macfie, Mehreen Zahra-Malik and Dominic Evans)

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Bomb kills at least 10 in shopping district in Pakistan's Lahore

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LAHORE, Pakistan A bomb blast in an upscale shopping centre in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore killed at least 10 people on Thursday, a provincial government spokesman said, the latest attack in a surge of violence that has shaken the country.

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That was the blunt — and unquestionably sarcastic — message one heated passenger delivered to a man and a woman as they were being kicked off a United Airlines flight Saturday evening for causing a disturbance that was blamed on racist comments.

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The Washington Post 8 hrs ago Peter Holley

"Goooodbyeee raaacists!"

That was the blunt - and unquestionably sarcastic - message one heated passenger delivered to a man and a woman as they were being kicked off a United Airlines flight Saturday evening for causing a disturbance that was blamed on racist comments.

The confrontation on Flight 1113 from Chicago to Houston began several minutes earlier, when a Pakistani man and woman wearing traditional clothing were boarding the plane, according to VHF affiliate KHOU.

As the couple placed their bags in an overheard bin, a male passenger - who was not identified by the airline - asked the couple if they had a bomb in their luggage, another passenger sitting nearby told KHOU.

"That's not a bomb in your bag, is it?" the man said, according to the passenger who was not identified by KHOU. The passenger added that the couple did not immediately hear the comment, which prompted the man to repeat his remark.

KHOU reported that a woman sitting nearby alerted a flight attendant, which led other passengers to also complain about the man's questions. When the Indian American boyfriend of the woman who alerted the attendant complained, a heated exchange followed.

"The person ahead of us turned around and asked where my boyfriend was from; my boyfriend said it's none of your business," the woman told KHOU. "At that point he said all illegals and all foreigners need to leave the country."

Cellphone footage of the incident shows the man saying all the "illegals" need to kicked off the plane, moments before the man and woman are asked to collect their belongings and exit the aircraft.

"I didn't say anything," the man protested, shrugging.

"Happy flight home," he added seconds later while his female companion holds her middle finger up to the person filming. "I hope you stay there."

"Get out of here," a woman responded. "Racists aren't welcome in America! This is not Trump's America!"

"Goooodbyeee raaacists!" the woman added.

"Hey, I'll come back, but you'll be gone," the man said as he walked away.

Jonathan Guerin, a United Airlines spokesman, told The Washington Post the man and woman understood why they were asked to leave the plane and calm down. They were placed on a later flight bound for Houston, but Guerin said he didn't know if the Texas city was their final destination.

"We removed two passengers for making others feel uncomfortable on the flight and for saying some inappropriate things to customers on the flight," Guerin said, noting that removing customers from flights because of disruptive behavior is exceedingly rare.

"Most customers appreciate a place where they feel safe and where they're not going to be attacked and we want to provide that," he added.
MORE READING: The man who destroyed Trump's Walk of Fame star will be on probation for three years ACLU sues Milwaukee and accuses police of 'unconstitutional, suspicionless stop-and-frisk program' The executions Justice Sotomayor calls 'horrifying deaths'

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'This is not Trump's America!': Passengers rejoice when man accused of racism is kicked off flight

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The Washington Post 8 hrs ago Peter Holley "Goooodbyeee raaacists!" That was the blunt - and unquestionably sarcastic - message one heated passenger delivered to a man and a woman as they were being kicked off a United Airlines flight Saturday evening for causing a disturbance that was blamed on racist comments.

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You're telling us...

No Obligation, Fast & Simple Free New Car Quote

Those of us that live in Los Angeles (this author included) know the City of Angels has the worst traffic in the universe. OK, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it definitely has the worst traffic in the world according to one study.

The 2016 INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard ranks Los Angeles as number-one when it comes to traffic. INRIX says its traffic study is the largest ever, looking at congestion in 1,064 cities in 38 different countries. L.A. handily claims the top spot with 104 Peak Hours Spent in Congestion. That number (representing hours per year) is derived by applying the average peak-period traffic rate to the average commute time for each city. L.A. also tops the list with the highest INRIX Congestion Index, a metric that looks at congestion rates relative to a city's size.

Coming in second is Moscow, Russia, followed by New York City and San Francisco. Bogotá, Colombia, rounds out the top five. The next worst U.S. city in the top 25 is Atlanta, Ga., at number eight, followed by Miami, Fla., and Washington, D.C., at numbers 10 and 13, respectively.

There are more than 15 million people living in Los Angeles, and more than 84 percent of people who live in the L.A., Long Beach, or Anaheim metro areas choose to drive to work, according to INRIX. Natrually, that many cars on the road leads to some major gridlock. The city's worst spot is on I-10 eastbound between I-405 and I-110 in the evening. Curiously, the notorious 405 itself doesn't make the top five most clogged arteries.

Check out the top 25 cities with the world's worst traffic in the chart below and see a more detailed breakdown here. Did your city make the list? Should it have? Tell us in the comments below.

Source: INRIX

Top 25 Global Ranking of Major Cities

RANK

CITY

COUNTRY

CONTINENT

PEAK HOURS SPENT IN CONGESTION

INRIX CONGESTION INDEX

AVERAGE CONGESTION RATE

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Los Angeles has the World's Worst Traffic, Study Finds - Motor Trend

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No Obligation, Fast & Simple Free New Car Quote Those of us that live in Los Angeles (this author included) know the City of Angels has the worst traffic in the universe. OK, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it definitely has the worst traffic in the world according to one study.

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Former Rams, Jets RB Zac Stacy announces retirement

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Former NFL running back Zac Stacy announced that he has retired from playing football after three seasons in the pros, a career cut short by a broken ankle in 2015.

In a post on Instagram on Thursday that he titled ''Thank You Football,'' Stacy says playing football was ''a life changer'' for him and thanked those who supported him throughout his playing career.

The speedy and versatile Stacy was a fifth-round draft pick by the Rams out of Vanderbilt in 2013. After two seasons with the Rams, he was acquired by the Jets in 2015.

Stacy played in just eight games for New York and saw his 2015 season - and ultimately, his career - end when he injured his ankle while returning a kickoff against Buffalo. He spent the rest of the season on injured reserve and was released last July after failing his physical.

Stacy, who did not play in the NFL last season, finishes with 1,355 yards rushing and nine TDs, along with 53 catches for 358 yards and a score. His best season came as a rookie in 2013, when he ran for 973 yards and seven TDs.

---

For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP-NFL

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Former Rams, Jets RB Zac Stacy announces retirement

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Former NFL running back Zac Stacy announced that he has retired from playing football after three seasons in the pros, a career cut short by a broken ankle in 2015. In a post on Instagram on Thursday that he titled ''Thank You Football,'' Stacy says playing football was ''a life changer'' for him and thanked those who supported him throughout his playing career.

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When it boils down to matters of trust, a majority of Americans say they trust the media more than President Trump

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Victim's phone recorded voice saying 'down the hill' before Indiana teens killed

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Teenagers blockade Paris schools in protest over alleged police rape

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A winter storm may bring a swath of heavy snow and damaging winds to parts of the Great Plains and Midwest.

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Major European company says employee has gone missing with $100M

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A huge Antarctic glacier just lost another chunk of ice — and we know because of NASA,

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One of Antarctica's most rapidly melting glaciers has shed yet another large block of ice in an event that NASA scientists say is "further evidence of the ice shelf's fragility." The agency drew attention to the incident in a tweet Wednesday morning.

Pine Island Glacier, located on the edge of the increasingly unstable ice sheet of West Antarctica, is a top concern for climate scientists and one of the region's biggest potential contributors to global sea level rise. It's pouring about 50 billion tons of ice into the ocean each year, and scientists think this rate could continue to increase in the future. Altogether, the glacier has the potential to raise global sea levels by an estimated two feet.

Scientists' concern stems largely from the glacier's interaction with the ocean, which laps against the exposed front of the floating ice shelf and also travels deep beneath it. Warming ocean waters can cause glaciers to melt from the bottom up, making them less stable and more likely to break. In fact, Pine Island Glacier has experienced several significant calving events - that's when an iceberg breaks off from the ice shelf - in recent years. In 2015, the glacier lost a massive iceberg with an area of more than 200 square miles.

The most recent event, which was captured via satellite imagery at the end of January, is small in comparison - NASA scientists estimate that the area of ice lost only spans a square mile or so. But the event speaks to the fact that the glacier is still melting and breaking.

"I think this event is the calving equivalent of an 'aftershock' following the much bigger event," said Ian Howat, a glaciologist at Ohio State University, in a recent statement . "Apparently, there are weaknesses in the ice shelf - just inland of the rift that caused the 2015 calving - that are resulting in these smaller breaks." Indeed, scientists have previously observed multiple small rifts in the ice that they think could lead to more calving events in the future.

The incident comes as the future of the agency's climate research grows increasingly uncertain. Last November, just after President Trump was elected, one of his campaign advisers shocked the climate science community by suggesting that the new administration should curtail NASA climate research activities.

And now, the issue has cropped up again in a hearing conducted last Thursday by the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. At the hearing, committee chair Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) reportedly stated that he'd like to see a "rebalancing" at NASA, and later told E&E News that he'd like the agency to focus more on space exploration, while other agencies can focus on earth sciences and climate change. (On the space front, NASA researchers were part of a broader team that just discovered a striking group of seven exoplanets orbiting close to a nearby sun, all of which are in an Earthlike temperature range.)

Although it's true that other federal agencies are also instrumental players when it comes to U.S. climate science, NASA's satellite observations give the agency a unique and probably irreplaceable role when it comes to climate research. NASA data have been used in everything from constructing global temperature records to monitoring ice melt at the poles and recording events such as the recent calving at Pine Island. Experts have noted that cutting the agency's earth sciences research could be devastating not only for U.S. scientists, but for climate researchers around the world.

It's also notable that the agency has continued to post about climate science when other agencies - most notably the Environmental Protection Agency - appear to have reduced their communications under the new administration. Shortly after the inauguration, Trump administration officials enacted a temporary media blackout for certain federal agencies, including the EPA and the Interior and Agriculture departments. And although most agencies resumed communications as usual shortly thereafter, the EPA remained almost completely silent on social media until the official appointment of Scott Pruitt as EPA administrator last week.

For now, it seems like business as usual for NASA as the agency continues to keep the public informed about Pine Island and other climate news.

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House Committee on Science , Space and Technology

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A huge Antarctic glacier just lost another chunk of ice - and we know because of NASA

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One of Antarctica's most rapidly melting glaciers has shed yet another large block of ice in an event that NASA scientists say is "further evidence of the ice shelf's fragility." The agency drew attention to the incident in a tweet Wednesday morning.

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Police found victims phone with a recording saying "down the hill" before the death of two teen girls.

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8 people have died after a bomb going off in Pakistan.

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According to a CTD report the blast was caused by explosives

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jesus statue outside a church in Indiana has been beheaded twice

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So it's a little startling to see a statue of Jesus outside an Indiana church defaced twice in the past two weeks. Once on a Sunday, even.

The Cottage Avenue Pentecostal Fellowship in Indianapolis installed the concrete statue five years ago after it was donated by the daughter of one of its members. But on the statue's first day in its new home, the church saw a glimpse of the vandalism to come.

"The first time we put it up, they knocked it over," Pastor Brad Flaskamp told CNN. The statue was put back in place and the church thought no more of it for years, he said.

Until two weeks ago, when churchgoers discovered their familiar Jesus in an unfamiliar state. Someone had beheaded the statue.

Luckily, Jesus' head was left behind and the church was able to reattach it on Saturday. But the next day, vandals struck again.

And this time, they took the head with them.

"It's still headless, we haven't gotten it fixed yet," said Flaskamp, adding that the rest of the statue remained standing outside the church. "Don't know if we can."

An investigation has been underway since the first beheading two weeks ago. But with no surveillance footage of the incidents, police are relying on information from the public.

Flaskamp, perhaps mindful of Jesus' teachings on forgiveness, is hoping for a friendlier resolution.

"If whoever it is would come in and return the head and ask us to forgive him, we'd forgive him," he said. "That's what it's all about."

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Jesus statue beheaded twice in two weeks

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So it's a little startling to see a statue of Jesus outside an Indiana church defaced twice in the past two weeks. Once on a Sunday, even. The Cottage Avenue Pentecostal Fellowship in Indianapolis installed the concrete statue five years ago after it was donated by the daughter of one of its members.

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The 29-year-old singer has been named the 2017 Harvard University Humanitarian of the Year and will accept the Peter J. Gomes Humanitarian Award at a ceremony on campus next Tuesday.

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People 9 hrs ago Brianne Tracy

Rihanna may be widely celebrated for her music, but now she's accepting a different type of honor-for her humanitarian work.

The 29-year-old singer has been named the 2017 Harvard University Humanitarian of the Year and will accept the Peter J. Gomes Humanitarian Award at a ceremony on campus next Tuesday.

"Rihanna has charitably built a state-of-the-art center for oncology and nuclear medicine to diagnose and treat breast cancer at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Bridgetown, Barbados," said Harvard Foundation director S. Allen Counter.

The vocal philanthropist also created the Clara Lionel Foundation in honor of her grandmother and grandfather to improve health, education and arts and culture around the world. The charity offers a scholarship program for students attending college in the U.S. from Caribbean countries.

Last month, Rihanna traveled to Malawi to spend time with key educators, government officials, students and mentors to promote education on behalf of her foundation and as the ambassador for Global Citizen and the Global Partnership for Education, a multiyear campaign that will provide children with access to education in over 60 developing countries, giving priority to girls and those affected by lack of access to education in the world today.

"met the bravest, most humble kids and young women this week! I can't wait to share more!" she shared in an Instagram post of the trip.

In the fall, she headlined the organization's annual Global Citizen festival.

And who could forget the moment when pop royalty and real royalty met? Prince Harry joined Rihanna on World AIDS Day in her native Barbados to make a statement on HIV. The two did an HIV finger-prick test "to show how easy it is to be tested for HIV," Kensington Palace announced.

Each year, Harvard University presents the award to a prominent public-spirited leader. She joins past honorees James Earl Jones and tennis player Arthur Ashe.

Rihanna will be presented with the award at 4 p.m. at the Sanders Theatre on Feb. 28.

See Meryl Streep's Oscar dress evolution

The 20-time Academy Award nominee has been to her fair share of award ceremonies. Look back at all the gorgeous Oscar gowns worn by the iconic actress.

TODAY

Star Wars celebration 40th anniversary poster features every era

The first official poster from Lucasfilm for Star Wars Celebration Orlando, the 2017 convention taking place in April, has been released. The poster covers every era of Star Wars, with imagery from the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy, and the sequel trilogy all present. It's fun for fans to see the entire Star Wars Skywalker Saga represented in one image this way, and this is sure to be an incredibly popular item at Star Wars Celebration Orlando. Alongside the poster, they also announced a Star Wars 40th Anniversary panel will kick off the weekend on Thursday, April 13. Warwick Davis, who has appeared in all three trilogies and the standalone Rogue One, and is beloved by Star Wars fandom, will host the panel, alongside Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and special guests from across the entire history of the franchise.

Wochit Entertainment

Ellen questions Jennifer Lopez on Drake rumors

Ellen DeGeneres questions Jennifer Lopez about her love life, and addresses rumors about her and Drake.

CNN

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Harvard University Humanitarian of the Year

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Rihanna Named Harvard University's 2017 Humanitarian of the Year

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People 9 hrs ago Brianne Tracy Rihanna may be widely celebrated for her music, but now she's accepting a different type of honor-for her humanitarian work. The 29-year-old singer has been named the 2017 Harvard University Humanitarian of the Year and will accept the Peter J.

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Beef With Soulja Is The Worst Game On The Apple Store

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Beef With Soulja Is The Worst Game On The Apple Store

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Rapper Soulja Boy loves to beef. That is no secret at this point. I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to beef with me. Why? I've released my scathing review of his mobile game called Beef With Soulja. A game not about fighting, beefing or any type of confrontation.

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To millions of people, the image of Jesus Christ stands for peace, love, and compassion. So it's a little startling to see a statue of Jesus outside an Indiana church defaced twice in the past two weeks. Once on a Sunday

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Astronomers have found at least seven Earth-sized planets orbiting the same star 40 light-years away, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The findings were also announced at a news conference at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

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Story highlights

Astronomers have found at least seven Earth-sized planets orbiting the same star 40 light-years away, according to a study publishedWednesdayin the journal Nature. The findings were also announced at a news conference at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

This discovery outside of our solar system is rare because the planets have the winning combination of being similar in size to Earth and being all temperate, meaning they could have water on theirsurfaces and potentially support life.

"This is the first time that so many planets of this kind are found around the same star," said Michaël Gillon, lead study author and astronomer at the University of Liège in Belgium.

The seven exoplanets wereall found in tight formation around an ultracool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1. Estimates of their mass also indicate that they are rocky planets, rather than being gaseous like Jupiter. Three planets are in the habitable zone of the star, known as TRAPPIST-1e, f and g, and may even have oceans on the surface.

The researchers believe that TRAPPIST-1f in particular is the best candidate for supporting life. It's a bit cooler than Earth, but could be suitable with the right atmosphere and enough greenhouse gases.

If TRAPPIST-1 sounds familiar, that's because these researchers announcedthe discovery of three initial planets orbiting the samestar in May. The newresearch increased that number to seven planets total.

"I think we've made a crucial step towards finding if there is life out there," said Amaury Triaud, one of the study authors and an astronomer at the University of Cambridge. "I don't think any time before we had the right planets to discover and find out if there was (life). Here, if life managed to thrive and releases gases similar to what we have on Earth, we will know."

Life may begin and evolve differently on other planets, so finding the gases that indicate life is key, the researchers added.

"This discovery could be a significant piece in the puzzle of finding habitable environments, places that are conducive to life," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "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."

And as we've learned from studying and discovering exoplanets before, where there is one, there are more, said Sara Seager, professor of planetary science and physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Seager and other researchers are encouraged by the discovery of this system because it improves our chances of finding another habitable planet, like Earth, in the future, by knowing where to look.

What we know

The planets are so close to each other and the star that there areseven of them within a space five times smaller than the distance from Mercury to our sun. This proximity allows the researchers to study the planets in depth as well, gaining insight about planetary systems other than our own.

Starting closest to the star and moving out, the planets have respective orbits from one and a half to nearly 13 Earth days. The orbit of the farthest planet is still unknown.

Standing on the surface of one of the planets, you would receive 200 times less light than you get from the sun, but you would still receive just as much energy to keep you warm since the star is so close. It would also afford some picturesque views, as the other planets would appear in the sky as big as the moon (or even twice as big).

On TRAPPIST-1f, the star would appear three times as big as the sun in our sky. And because of the red nature of the star, the light would be a salmon hue, the researchers speculate.

The researchers believe the planets formed together further from the star. Then, they moved into their current lineup. This is incredibly similar Jupiter and its Galilean moons.

Like the moon, the researchers believe the planets closest to the star are tidally locked. This means that the planets always face one way to the star. One side of the planet is perpetually night, while the other is always day.

Based on preliminary climate modeling, the researchers believe that the three planets closest to the star may be too warm to support liquid water, while the outermost planet, TRAPPIST-1h, is probably too distant and cold to support water on the surface. But further observation is needed to know for sure.

How the discovery was made

TRAPPIST-1 barely classifies as a star at half the temperature and a tenth the mass of the sun. It is red, dim and just a bit larger than Jupiter. But these tiny ultracool dwarf stars are common in our galaxy.

They were largely overlooked until Gillon decided to study the space around one of these dwarfs.

The researchers used a telescope called TRAPPIST (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope) to observe its starlight and changes in brightness. The team saw shadows, like little eclipses, periodically interrupting the steady pattern of starlight. This is called transiting. The shadows indicated planets, and further observation confirmed them.

In July, the team was able to determine that two of the closest planets to the stars had atmospheres that were more compact and comparable to those of Earth, Venus and Mars by observing starlight through the planets' atmosphere.

By using a global network ground-based telescopes like TRAPPIST and space-based telescopes like Spitzer, the researchers continued looking toward the TRAPPIST system and were able to determine the orbital periods, distances from their star, radius and and masses of the planets.

What's next

Over the next decade, the researchers want to define the atmosphere of each planet, as well as to determine whether they truly do have liquid water on the surface and search for signs of life.

Although 40 light-years away doesn't sound too far, it would take us millions of years to reach this star system. But from a research perspective, it's a close opportunity and the best target to search for life beyond our solar system.

"If we learn something now, it can determine if we looked in the right place," Gillon said.

In 2018, the James Webb Space Telescope will launch and be positioned 1 million miles from Earth with an unprecedented view of the universe. It can observe large exoplanets and detect starlight filtered through their atmosphere.

The researchersare also searching for similar star systems to conduct more atmospheric research. Four telescopes named SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) based in Chile willsurvey the southern sky for this purpose.

This star system will probably outlive us because this type of star evolves so slowly. When our sun dies, TRAPPIST-1 will still be a young star and will live for another trillion years, Gillon said. After we are gone, if there is another part of the universe for life to carry on, it may be in the TRAPPIST-1 system.

"This is the most exciting result I have seen in the 14 years of Spitzer operations," said Sean Carey, manager of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California. "Spitzer will follow up in the fall to further refine our understanding of these planets so that the James Webb Space Telescope can follow up. More observations of the system are sure to reveal more secrets."

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Astronomers discover 7 Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby star | CNN

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Astronomers have found at least seven Earth-sized planets orbiting the same star 40 light-years away, according to a study publishedWednesdayin the journal Nature. The findings were also announced at a news conference at NASA Headquarters in Washington.