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ByMarciaDunn TheAssociatedPress CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. For the first time, astronomers havediscoveredsevenEarth- size planets orbiting a single nearby star — and these new worlds could hold life. This cluster of planets is less than 40 light-years away intheconstellationAquarius, according to NASA and the Belgian-led research team who announced the discov- ery Wednesday. The planets circle tightly around a dim dwarf star called Trappist-1, barely the size of Jupiter. Three are in the so-called habitable zone, the area around a star where water and, possibly life, might exist. The others are right on the doorstep. Scientistssaidtheyneedto studytheatmospheresbefore determining whether these rocky, terrestrial planets could support some sort of life. But it already shows just how many Earth-size plan- ets could be out there — es- peciallyinastar'ssweetspot, ripe for extraterrestrial life. The more planets like this, the greater the potential of finding one that's truly hab- itable. Until now, only two or three Earth-size planets had been spotted around a star. "We'vemadeacrucialstep toward finding if there is life outthere,"saidtheUniversity of Cambridge's Amaury Tri- aud, one of the researchers. The potential for more Earth-size planets in our Milky Way galaxy is mind- boggling. The history of planet-searching shows "when there's one, there's more," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology as- trophysicist Sara Seager. "With this amazing sys- tem,weknowthattheremust be many more potentially life-bearing worlds out there just waiting to be found," she said. NASA's Thomas Zurbu- chen, associate administra- tor for the science mission, said the discovery "gives us a hint that finding a second Earth is not just a matter of if, but when," and addresses the age-old question of "Are we alone out there?" "We're making a step for- ward with this, a leap for- ward in fact, toward answer- ingthatquestion,"Zurbuchen said at a news conference. Lastspring,theUniversity of Liege's Michael Gillon and his team reported finding three planets around Trap- pist-1. Now the count is up to seven, and Gillon said there could be more. Their latest findings appear in the jour- nal Nature. This crowded yet com- pact solar system — 235 tril- lionmilesaway—isreminis- cent of Jupiter and its Gali- leanmoons,accordingtothe researchers. Picture this: If Trappist-1 were our sun, all seven plan- ets would be inside Mercu- ry's orbit. Mercury is the in- nermost planet of our own solar system. The ultracool star at the heart of this system would shine200timesdimmerthan our sun, a perpetual twilight as we know it. And the star would glow red — maybe salmon-colored,theresearch- ers speculate. "The spectacle would be beautiful because every now and then, you would see an- other planet, maybe about as big as twice the moon in the sky, depending on which planet you're on and which planet you look at," Triaud said Tuesday in a teleconfer- ence with reporters. Years are exceedingly short in this star system — the planets take just 1 ½ to 20 days to orbit Trappist-1. The Leiden Observatory's Ignas Snellen, who was not involved in the study, is ex- citedbytheprospectoflearn- ing more about what he calls "the seven sisters of planet Earth." In a companion arti- cle in Nature, he said Gillon's team could have been lucky in nabbing so many terres- trial planets in one stellar swoop. "But finding seven tran- siting Earth-sized planets in suchasmallsamplesuggests that the solar system with its four (sub-) Earth-sized plan- ets might be nothing out of the ordinary," Snellen wrote. Gillon and his team used both ground and space tele- scopes to identify and track the planets, which they label simply by lowercase letters, "b" through "h." As is typical in these cases, the letter "A" —inuppercase—isreserved forthestar.Planetscastshad- owsontheirstarastheypass in front of it; that's how the scientists spotted them. Tiny, cold stars like Trap- pist-1 were long shunned by exoplanet-hunters (exoplan- ets are those outside our so- lar system). But the Belgian astronomers decided to seek themout,buildingatelescope in Chile to observe 60 of the closest ultracool dwarf stars. Their Trappist telescope lent its name to this star. While faint, the Trappist-1 star is close by cosmic stan- dards, allowing astronomers to study the atmospheres of its seven temperate planets. All seven look to be solid like Earth — mostly rocky and possibly icy, too. ASTRONOMY 7 Ea rt h- si ze w or ld s fo un d or bi ti ng s ta r; c ou ld h ol d lif e IMAGESBYNASA—JPL-CALTECH Am image provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech shows an artist's conception of what the surface of the exoplanet TRAPPIST- planetary system may look like, based on available data about their diameters, masses and distances from the host star. An illustration shows an artist's conception of what the TRAPPIST-1planetary system may look like. Werollupoursleevesforourcommunities. Meet us: RabobankAmerica.com/WeAreRabobank Connect with us Allacross California, there are communities grounded in agriculture that share our values. That's where you'll find us. 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