The new system was discovered by ground and space based telescopes run by a team of international scientists from University of Liège in Belgium, Nasa and other similar facilities around the world.

The seven planets of the system revolve around a parent star known as TRAPPIST-1, named after TRAnsiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) facilities built by the University of Liège.

One observatory TRAPPIST-South is located in Chile whereas its twin facility TRAPPIST-North was inaugurated in Morocco last year.

The discovery first appeared in the journal Nature, saying the planetary zone could host the environment that could be suitable for water and alien life. This system has largest number of Earth-sized planets found so far.

If we want to look beyond our home for life, we must first locate stars like our sun and then earth like planets around it.

Seven wonders of the sky

Astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets but the TRAPPIST-1 is unique in many ways.

TRAPPIST-1 is a home of seven planets dubbed as TRAPPIST-1b, TRAPPIST-1c, d, e, f, g and h respectively.

Of these, TRAPPIST-1b, c and d are too hot due to their close distance from the parent star, while TRAPPIST-1h distance is unconfirmed.

But scientists are confident that TRAPPIST-1e, f and g are neither close nor far from the parent star and exist in most habitable zone.

With just 8 per cent the mass of the Sun, TRAPPIST-1 is very small in stellar terms and a little bigger than our Jupiter but a new research has unveiled its most disturbing aspect – the life threatening solar activity.

The violent solar flares

The discovery of TRAPPIST-1 made headlines across the world in February this year, but a team of scientists from Hungary has revealed its most disturbing aspect.

Scholars from Konkoly Observatory in Budapest have revealed that its solar flares are too frequent and strong enough to wreak havoc in the whole planetary system.

Using data from NASA’s Kepler mission, the team observed the TRAPPIST-1 light curve for more than 80 days. The researchers observed some 42 solar flare events which is equal to one chaotic event after every 48 hours.

The researchers fear that these solar flares could disturb the geomagnetic fabric of the planets in the system. The high energy radiation is also disastrous for the faint atmosphere of even the three planets (TRAPPIST-1e, f and g) lie in habitable area.

The importance of TRAPPIST-North

The TRAPPIST- North observatory was set in October last year in collaboration with Oukaimeden Observatory at Cadi Ayyad University in Morocco.

Speaking about the role of TRAPPIST-North the research associate at the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS), Michael Gillon said, “About 60% of its time is dedicated to the search for terrestrial planets transiting the nearest ultracool dwarf stars. We observed several transits of the TRAPPIST-1 planets, which brought a significant contribution to the results presented in recent paper published in weekly Nature.”

The Morocco observatory is also a good example of North-South co-operation. The Belgium-Morocco joint venture is playing a key role in capacity building of local astronomers.

“Professor Zuhair Benkhaldoun and Ahmed Dassaou are part of the Cadi Ayad team. Two students, Youssef Moulane (who works on comets) and Khalid Barkaoui (who works on exoplanets) have finished their PhD thesis in cotutelle with the University of Liege,” added Gillon.

Speaking to Muslim Science, Gillon said that we have requested to European institutes for further grant for the learning and skill development of Moroccan students through teaching and exchange program.

This is an ideal place for visual astronomy because of 250 cloudless days annually. The place is already a home for many telescopes from various universities and institutes around the world. It is also located at Atlas Mountains near the celestial equator which is best for sky hunting both from Northern and Southern hemispheres.

The European Space Agency’s £1bn Rosetta probe caught up with comet 67P in August and began flying around the giant lump of ice and dust to scan the surface for a landing site for Philae, its tiny lander.

After ruling out several sites as too dangerous, the agency settled on a one-square-kilometre landing spot it has named Agilkia. It is the best of the bunch, but there are still no guarantees that Esa can pull off one of the most ambitious manoeuvres in space exploration.

The Mont Blanc-sized comet is shaped like a rubber duck and has precipices and slopes to contend with. Its surface is pocked with holes and strewn with boulders. The difficulty of the landing is testament to how hard rocket science has become.

Any number of glitches could yet delay the landing. But if all goes to plan, Rosetta will unlock a spring-loaded mechanism at 9am GMT on Wednesday morning and gently nudge the lander towards the comet. For the next seven hours, Philae will descend 22km in silence, reaching its target on the “head” of the comet around 4pm GMT.

“Excitement is rising and so is our nervousness,” said Hermann Boehnhardt, lead scientist on the Philae lander. “For the moment, the focus is on the engineers and the lander and orbiter spacecraft and their subunits that have to do the job for the lander delivery and release.”

The lander, a cubic-metre box of electronics on legs, holds instruments that will analyse the comet and take images of its nucleus as it spews more and more dust and ice on its journey towards the sun. The measurements will help scientists answer the question of whether a bombardment from comets billions of years ago brought water and simple organic molecules to Earth, ultimately paving the way for life.

A small glitch struck on Monday night, when the Philae lander awoke but remained on its backup computer instead of switching to its main computer. The problem was resolved by implementing a procedure endorsed by IT departments the world over: mission controllers in Darmstadt turned it off and on again.

The problem had threatened to delay the landing, but scientists on the team said on Tuesday that after resolving the issue, the lander had warmed up well and that the original landing schedule was still feasible.

More important than being on time, the lander must be on target. If Philae strays outside its landing zone, it has a greater chance of toppling over in the more hostile terrain. To land in the right place, mission controllers must take into account the dust and water vapour billowing off the comet and its oddly shaped gravitational field. On touchdown, Philae will use harpoons and icescrews to secure itself to the comet.

The comet is already losing up to five litres of water a second, which blasts from the icy body in jets. As the comet gets closer to the sun, the jets of water vapour grow ever more intense. If all goes well, Rosetta may deliberately fly through one of the jets next summer.

Fred Jansen, mission manager, gives the landing a 75% chance of success. This was the original percentage the agency wanted when it committed to the mission back in 1992.

When the bizarre shape of the comet was revealed in July, some thought the landing was going to prove impossible. But months of work have now boosted confidence that the mission has a good chance of delivering Philae to the surface safely. “Twenty years ago we said we wanted to land on a comet we knew nothing about. There will be risks,” said Jansen.

Andrea Accomazzo, Rosetta flight director, has worked on the mission for 18 years. “The mission is already a major achievement in space exploration history,” he said. “Exploration implies risk. If you are not ready to take the risk, then you shouldn’t do exploration.”

The mission will continue, whether or not Philae makes it to the surface safely. The landing would be “the cherry on the cake”, said Jansen.