• Question: Is there any other solar sytems

    Asked by Hasnaian to Lucy on 10 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Lucy Kissick

      Lucy Kissick answered on 10 Mar 2017:


      Yes, probably billions! Planets orbiting other stars are incredibly common and are called exoplanets, and a lot of them are weirder than we could ever imagine. One is so close to its star that its sun-facing side is entirely lava while the other is frozen solid; another orbits three stars at once; another is so arch in carbon that it’s probably 1/3 pure diamond.

      My favourite is the Trappist-1 system, named after the telescope that discovered it: it has seven known planets and three of them could have liquid water.

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