--- title: Google Celebrates of Seven New Planets With Stellar Doodle description: An animated Doodle shows earth peering through a telescope to find seven friendly neighbors, just 235 trillion miles away canonical: https://time.com/4679842/google-doodle-trappist-1-nasa/ author: Feliz Solomon article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-02-23T03:11:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:34.492Z og:title: Google Doodle Celebrates Discovery of Earth-Sized Planets og:description: Scientists believe the new solar system could be hospitable to life og:url: https://time.com/4679842/google-doodle-trappist-1-nasa/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltef55d98bf9db288c/6988bb780a4a225b229cd054/seven-earth-size-exoplanets-discovered-6423181526040576-2-hp2x1.gif?branch=production&width=818&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 818 og:image:height: 460 og:image:alt: seven-earth-size-exoplanets-discovered-6423181526040576-2-hp2x og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Google Doodle Celebrates Discovery of Earth-Sized Planets twitter:description: Scientists believe the new solar system could be hospitable to life twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltef55d98bf9db288c/6988bb780a4a225b229cd054/seven-earth-size-exoplanets-discovered-6423181526040576-2-hp2x1.gif?branch=production&width=818&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Google Celebrates the Discovery of Seven Earth-Sized Planets With This Stellar Doodle > Sponsored content. 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Future Proof is TIME's weekly climate and energy newsletter, written by senior correspondent Justin Worland. It connects the energy transition to the decisions reshaping business, technology, policy and markets. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-futureproof-2026q3/newsletters?i=73f451d9-5db7-416d-8809-928d20fb70cf&cr=time-nl-futureproof-2026q3-v1) ## Video: NASA Announces a Single Star Is Home to At Least 7 Earthlike Planets [Watch (HLS stream): NASA Announces a Single Star Is Home to At Least 7 Earthlike Planets](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/HGXg7PBa.m3u8) (1:28)  _Published 2017-02-22. NASA announced that a single star relatively close to Earth is home to no fewer than seven Earthlike planets. If you're looking for extraterrestrial life, there may be no place better._ by [Feliz Solomon](https://time.com/author/feliz-solomon/) ## Feliz Solomon Feb 23, 2017 3:11 AM UTC  Google by [Feliz Solomon](https://time.com/author/feliz-solomon/) ## Feliz Solomon Feb 23, 2017 3:11 AM UTC NASA has just announced the [discovery ](http://time.com/4677103/nasa-announcement-new-solar-system/?xid=homepage)of seven previously unknown earth-size planets orbiting a single dwarf star, which scientists believe could be the best place to look for life, and the Google team could hardly contain its excitement. Thursday’s [animated Doodle](https://www.google.com/doodles/seven-earth-size-exoplanets-discovered) shows earth peering through a telescope to find its seven friendly neighbors, just 235 trillion miles away. Scientists said the newly discovered solar system, Trappist-1, is significant because three of its seven planets orbit in the “habitable zone”; their proximity to the system’s star suggests the right conditions for holding liquid water. The other four could also potentially be hospitable to living organisms. Researchers don’t yet know whether any of the planets are habitable, but they believe it’s promising. “This discovery could be a significant piece in the puzzle of finding habitable environments, places that are conducive to life,” NASA administrator Thomas Zurbuchen said in a [statement](https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-telescope-reveals-largest-batch-of-earth-size-habitable-zone-planets-around). “Answering the question ‘are we alone’ is a top science priority and finding so many planets like these for the first time in the habitable zone is a remarkable step forward toward that goal.” ## Transcript [00:00] I'm excited to announce today, that Dr. Mikhail [00:02] [ UNKNOWN ] and his team, have used our Spitzer [00:06] space telescope to determine that are actually seven [00:09] earth- sized planets orbiting the nearby Trappist- 1 [00:13] star about 40 light years away What's more, [00:17] as you can see in this illustration, is that three of these [00:21] planets marked in green are in the habitable zone, [00:24] where liquid water could pool on the surface. In fact [00:28] with the right atmospheric conditions, there could be [00:30] water on any of these planets. So for the first time we [00:34] found as many terrestrial planets around a single star [00:39] And that's the first time we've been able to measure in [00:41] addition of both the masses and the radiai of these [00:45] habitable earth sized planets. The discovery [00:49] gives us a hint that finding a second earth It's [00:53] not just a matter of if, but when. Now what is also [00:58] exciting here about this system is that the planets are [01:00] so close to each other. If you were on the surface of [01:04] one of these planets, you would have A wonderful view [01:07] on the other planets. We don't see them like we see [01:11] Venus or Mars, like dots of light. But as you can see in [01:14] the next illustration, you would see them really as you [01:18] see the moon. You would see worlds which are very [01:21] big. You could see the strictures on [ UNKNOWN ] [01:23] walls. They would be as large as the moon, and even [01:27] larger for some of them. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4679842/google-doodle-trappist-1-nasa/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4679842/google-doodle-trappist-1-nasa/"},"headline":"Google Celebrates the Discovery of Seven Earth-Sized Planets With This Stellar Doodle","datePublished":"2017-02-23T03:11:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:47:34.492Z","description":"Scientists believe the new solar system could be hospitable to life","url":"https://time.com/4679842/google-doodle-trappist-1-nasa/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Google Doodle","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltef55d98bf9db288c/6988bb780a4a225b229cd054/seven-earth-size-exoplanets-discovered-6423181526040576-2-hp2x1.gif?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Feliz Solomon","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/feliz-solomon/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltef55d98bf9db288c/6988bb780a4a225b229cd054/seven-earth-size-exoplanets-discovered-6423181526040576-2-hp2x1.gif?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"seven-earth-size-exoplanets-discovered-6423181526040576-2-hp2x","caption":"","creditText":"Google","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4679842/google-doodle-trappist-1-nasa/","name":"Google Celebrates the Discovery of Seven Earth-Sized Planets With This Stellar Doodle"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"NASA Announces a Single Star Is Home to At Least 7 Earthlike Planets","description":"NASA announced that a single star relatively close to Earth is home to no fewer than seven Earthlike planets. 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