Amazing shapes can resemble TRAPPIST-1 planets, NASA says

The seven rocky planets of the nearby TRAPPIST-1 star system appear to be both low in density and possibly even very similar to each other, an international team of astronauts said t -this week.

New, more detailed observation mass estimates of these rocky low-mass planets orbiting the red star TRAPPIST-1 make it clear that this alien solar system is completely different from our own.

“These planets could have been collected directly from the protoplanetary disk around a star much colder than the Sun,” said Erik Asphaug, a geophysical planetary physicist at the University of Arizona, who was not part of the study.

The international team of researchers used 1000 hours of observation time on NASA’s decommissioned Spitzer Space Telescope to provide their observations. Their conclusions, reported in the Journal of Planetary Science, make it clear that this strange alien solar system – located nearly 40 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius — has been created in very different conditions from our own solar system.

If these planets were to collect directly from their star’s protoplanetary disk, rather than with a more random and brutal eruption process, Asphaug says it would come as no surprise that they would end up in lower densities.

That’s because the kind of massive impact accumulation we believe Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury and the Moon did was a waste process and got rid of a fraction of the lowest density materials in each collision ( a few per cent to ten per cent), said Asphaug.

“The TRAPPIST-1 system may have been similar to the proxy bodies from which the Earth and Venus were eventually built, as they were less dense as they had never suffered these major effects. , ”Said Asphaug.

Even if the terrestrial planets separate from TRAPPIST-1 and the Solar System look very similar in size and scale, the system architecture is quite different, Simon Grimm, one of the co-authors of the paper and an astronaut at the University of Bern, I told. The massive cosmic estimates show that the densities of the seven planets are much more probable than we previously thought, he says.

What did they write?

The fact that these planets are not as dense as the terrestrial planets in our solar system shows a different composition to be sure, Asphaug says. It’s unclear whether this is due to less iron being available for heartburn, or more water mixed into the bark and gut, he said.

NASA says the TRAPPIST planets may have a similar orbit to Earth —- made up of about the same ratios of iron, oxygen, magnesium and silicon as our own planet . The important difference seems to be that the TRAPPIST planets are only deficient in iron. Or the iron in the TRAPPIST planets may just be ingested with higher levels of oxygen than the Earth, creating iron oxide (or rust). This hypothetical extra oxygen, NASA said, would also work to reduce the density of planets.

Nevertheless, the team reports a lack of water in three planets inside the TRAPPIST system. TRAPPIST-1b, TRAPPIST-1c and TRAPPIST-1d are unlikely to harbor water (at any stage) at all, reported Martin Turbet, a geologist at the University of Geneva and co-author of the study.

“For the three [inner] planets, so the prospects for residence are not very good, ”said Turbet.

But Turbet says that while the three inner planets may be biological waste, three of the four planets outside this system still offer some hope residence.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is likely to be able to monitor the atmosphere of these planets and make significant strides in determining their human potential, Turbet said.