TRAPPIST-1 system:
- The system is 40 lightyears away; with current rocket technology, it would take 1,5 million years to get there.
- The star is roughly the size of Jupiter and can live over a thousand times longer than our sun.
- The star is a red dwarf - this planetary system discovery is 'shocking' because almost 75% of the stars in the Milky Way are red dwarfs... you do the math on habitable exoworlds.
- The system is so compact that it should be compared to the Jovian system than the solar system: even the outmost planet is closer to the star than Mercury is to the sun.
- There are 7 planets orbiting the star, all rocky and not much larger or smaller than Earth (density 60<>117% of Earth), and 3 of them are within the habitable zone.
- It is named after its discovery tool, the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) in Chile, but considering a Belgian guy found them, they like to say it's named after trappist beer and the planets will be named after beers.
Source: NASA Telescope Reveals Record-Breaking Exoplanet Discovery | NASA