Sorry To Let Everyone Down! TRAPPIST-1 Has Neither Aliens Nor A Second Earth

The Solar System’s newly discovered sister star system, which has seven planets orbiting around a dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, had created quite an excitement earlier this year. The star system that is located 39 light-years away from Earth was hailed as a potentially habitable place -- with temperate climates and liquid water. It was also suggested that this place could have conditions ideal for a planet to host life and be Earth-like.

However, now it seems that all the excitement was in vain. According to a Gizmodo report, scientists have found that the host star is so volatile that either three of its Earth-like planets have an extreme magnetosphere or they are quite simply uninhabitable worlds.

The scientists based their findings on a study that used data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. Researchers discovered that TRAPPIST-1 emits damaging solar flares once every 28 hours on average. The frequency of the storms imply that the atmospheres of the orbiting planets would be stripped away. It is particularly because the seven worlds are closer to their host star as compared to the distance of the Solar System’s planets to the Sun.

The only way that the atmospheres of the planets, which orbit TRAPPIST-1, are still intact is if those worlds have developed magnetospheres that are thousand times more powerful than Earth’s. However, the chances of those planets having powerful magnetospheres that can effectively ward off the damaging effects of solar flares are quite slim.

The frequent strong flares of TRAPPIST-1 are probably not friendly for hosting life on the orbiting exoplanets. “Approximately 12% of the flares were multi-peaked, complex eruptions,” the team states in the study that is archived by Cornell University Library. “TRAPPIST-1’s flaring activity probably continuously alters the atmospheres of the orbiting extra solar planets, making these less favorable for hosting life.”