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A team of astronomers have discovered a system of three Earth-like exoplanets orbiting a small star that is only 40 light-years away from Earth, that are considered good candidates for supporting life.

The star in question, an ultracool dwarf called TRAPPIST-1, is only a bit bigger than Jupiter, and only emits approximately one two-hundredths of the output of our Sun, making it too faint to see with the naked eye. The planets in question, however, orbit very close to the star, allowing them to gather enough light from the star to keep warm. Because of their extremely close orbits, the planets orbit TRAPPIST-1 extremely quickly: the innermost planet takes 1.5 Earth days for a single revolution, and the second planet’s year is only 2.4 days.
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Sometimes, if you’re not getting an answer to a question that you’re asking, perhaps it can help to change the question itself? This turns out to be a new approach to the Drake equation being made by two astronomers at the University of Rochester and University of Washington, to address a shortcoming in astronomy’s famous equation that has made it impossible to draw any firm conclusions from it.
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One of astronomy’s most secretive phenomena, black holes, has yielded yet another fascinating puzzle to astronomers — and in the process, offering what may be new insight into how the universe formed. A recent survey of a region of deep space has found that the powerful jets that are propelled by some supermassive black holes are uncannily aligned, all pointing in the same direction.
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