Churchill Science

The Cluster B classes have been studying the planets in our own solar system and finding out why Earth is so unique and special. But could there be planets somewhere else in the universe that we could live on? Recently scientists announced that they have found some…

The red glowing object is Gliese 581, a red dwarf star. There are several rocky planets orbiting it, each named for the star – Gliese 581c, Gliese 581d, and Gliese 581e. Last week, scientists announced that “d” and “e” were the planets most like Earth that have ever been found.

Here’s a video showing the whole system:

This next video shows some planets that orbit around other stars, that could be like our own planet Earth. These stars are very far away and it is currently too hard to take a picture of them, much less go there. The video also talks about why Venus and Mars didn’t end up having life, the way Earth did.

We can’t see the eclipse here from New York, but hopefully there will be some video footage to look at by the end of today!