Extra: A Star System Full of Earths

Following a recent NASA press conference – a regular event that
fills us with dread as we anticipate an anticlimax – this time
NASA really get us excited with the announcement of seven rocky
Earth sized planets around a star 40 light years away. Three of
these planets are in that star system’s habitable zone.


Luckily our own resident exoplanet researcher, Jeni, is on hand
to take us through the hunt and explain the science! In this
podcast extra we discuss:


The NASA announcement

The international collaboration that made this discovery

How exoplanets are discovered

The significance of the find

What this star system looks like

Could life exist on any of these worlds?

What the environmental conditions could be like so close to
their parent star



(image credit: NASA)