A Red Sun Named Trappist-1

"PLANET HOP FROM TRAPPIST-1e
Voted best "hab zone" vacation within 12 parsecs of Earth"
A new NASA tourist poster done in that terrific retro style we first saw here.
(Click to enlarge.)
(Credit: NASA-JPL/Caltech)

"NASA made the announcement in a live press conference after triggering much speculation over their big "discovery beyond our Solar System".

The new exoplanets have been detected orbiting an ultracool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1, which is located about 39 light-years away from our Sun in the Aquarius constellation.

Astronomers led by Michaël Gillon from the University of Liège in Belgium first detected three exoplanets around the star back in May 2016, using Earth-based telescopes.

But it wasn't until the team studied it more closely using NASA's Spitzer space telescope that they discovered an additional four planets in the system."

- Excerpt from a Science Alert article posted earlier today: BREAKING: NASA Announces the Discovery of a Potentially Habitable 'sister Solar' System.

***

I have a severe case of anxiety-produced writer's block these days but, while the angels continue to be left hanging in the air over at The Other Blog, it seemed imperative to finally move Post-Mac Blues past Christmas, 2016!  Ya think?

I had another post planned altogether - and was having a bitch of time with that one, too - when Google came to my rescue with one of their fun animations featuring a bunch of little bug-eyed planets begging for attention. I (dutifully) clicked on the animation and, presto, I was presented with another option for this post; not a better post, but, happily, a shorter one! And, actually, it might be quite exciting: seven new exoplanets have been discovered orbiting a dwarf star named Trappist-1 (named after the telescope which found it).  Moreover, they are earth-sized, possibly fit for bearing water... and, well, possibly life as well, although it never pays to get too excited about these things.

For more info, try this NASA page: NASA Telescope Reveals Largest Batch of Earth-Size, Habitable-Zone Planets Around Single Star.

As for the other post, well, it'll get here eventually... ;-)