NASA announced last week the discovery of seven new exoplanets, the largest batch of Earth-size, habitable-zone planets found orbiting a single star. The Spitzer Space Telescope precisely measured the sizes, masses, densities, and orbits of the seven exoplanets located around the ultra-cool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 located 40 light years away in the constellation Aquarius.
500 hours of continuous imaging revealed the existence of seven planetary bodies orbiting TRAPPIST-1. When a planet passed in front of the star, the telescope detected slight dips in brightness. The closest planet only takes only 1.5 Earth days to orbit the star whereas the furthest planet takes about 20 Earth days. The magnitude of the drop in brightness corresponds to the size of the planet, which can be used in conjunction with the orbital period to estimate the planetary mass.
Source: http://www.trappist.one/
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