They're not too hot, not too cold, and may provide just the right conditions for life to form. 

Astronomers have found three Earth-sized worlds within the so-called habitable 'Goldilocks' zone of a nearby star.

The scientists believe at least one of these 'three bears' planets may be 'just right' for life to get going, giving the search for life elsewhere in the universe a significant boost.

Astronomers have found three Earth-sized worlds (artist's illustration showing one of the planets and the star) within the so-called habitable 'Goldilocks' zone of a nearby star. The scientists believe at least one of these 'three bears' planets may be 'just right' for life to get going, giving the search for life in the universe a boost

The star is around 40 light-years away. By comparison Mars is, on average and based on its orbit, 12.5 light-minutes away. 

The international team of astronomers that found the planets said they are orbiting an ultracool brown dwarf star about one-eighth the size of our sun called 2MASS J23062928-0502285.

Also known as Trappist-1, this dim and cool star fades slightly at regular intervals, indicating several objects are passing between the star and the Earth. 

Detailed analysis has now shown that three planets with similar sizes to the Earth are present.

Trappist-1 is much cooler and redder than the sun and barely larger than Jupiter. It lies in the constellation of Aquarius. 

Such stars are both very common in the Milky Way and are very long-lived, but this is the first time planets have been found around one of them. 

Despite being so close to the Earth, this star is too dim and too red to be seen with the naked eye or even visually with a large amateur telescope. 

The international team of astronomers that found the planets said they are orbiting an ultracool brown dwarf star about one-eighth the size of our sun called 2MASS J23062928-0502285, also known as Trappist-1. This artist's impression shows how the star looks from the surface of one of the newly-found planets

Trappist-1 is much cooler and redder than the sun and barely larger than Jupiter. Such stars are common in the Milky Way but this is the first time planets have been found around one. The trio of exoplanets is up to 100 times closer to their star than the Earth is to the sun (illustrated) and all three could be habitable

According to Michaël Gillon of the University of Liège, Belgium, the planetary system looks more like moons orbiting Jupiter than our conventional idea of a solar system.

'The planets are 20 to 100 times closer to their star than Earth is to the sun,' he explained. 

'This is more similar in scale to the system of Jupiter's moons than the solar system.'

The team used a modest 60cm telescope, based in Chile, to find the planets. 

The astronomers believe all three may be habitable, and they are now turning larger instruments on these new worlds to find out more.

While other exoplanet searches have concentrated on bright stars, Gillon and his team set up the Trappist survey specifically to scan the 60 nearest dwarf stars.

'Systems around these tiny stars are the only places where we could detect life on Earth-sized exoplanets with our current technology' he said. 

'So this is where we should start to look.'

In September, Trappist-1 was seen to fade slightly at regular intervals, showing that several objects were passing in front of it. The current position of the star (bottom) is shown by a red cross. Its relative position in 1953 (top) and 1998 (middle) is indicated by a red circle to show its orbit compared to its current position

In their report, the astronomers said all three planets are likely tidally locked to their dim star, with hemispheres of permanent night and day. Other exoplanet searches have concentrated on bright stars while the latest study specifically sscans our 60 nearest dwarf stars. Stock image

In September 2015, Trappist-1 - was seen to fade slightly at regular intervals, showing that several objects were passing in front of it. 

Further observations confirmed these were Earth-sized planets.

The two innermost planets orbit in 1.5 and 2.4 days, while the third is less certain and might be anything between four and 73 days.

The team believes this third 'Daddy Bear' planet is the most likely to be habitable out of the three.

In their report, published today in the journal Nature, the astronomers said all three planets are likely tidally locked to their dim star, with hemispheres of permanent night and day.

For the inner two, this might restrict any life-friendly sweet spots to the 'twilight zone'. 

But on the third, the whole planet may be able to support life.

Because this solar system is relatively close, it should be possible to detect whether the planets have an atmosphere, and even to detect signs of life.

'We can study their atmosphere and composition, and within our generation, assess if they are actually inhabited,' added co-author Julien de Wit, an astronomer at MIT.

He added: 'All of these things are achievable, and within reach now. This is a jackpot for the field.'

The extraterrestrial presence and its political implications of are not at the centre of a public interest in the Czech Republic. The same goes for the field of ufology in general. Public awareness and knowledge about UFOs in the Czech Republic are non-existent. The Czech Republic officially has two UFO groups: best-known is Project - Glow (Prague), and there also is KPUFO (Club of Psychotronic and UFO – Plzen, western part of Czech Republic); apart from these, there also are some small regional groups.

But let us start from the beginning: since childhood, I had a strong feeling that some things are completely different than science says. After reading a book, by Erich von Däniken "Chariots of the Gods? Memories of the Future" as a teenager, I knew that my hunch was correct. Intuitively, I did never accept the idea that I come from monkeys. I knew something was wrong in our human´s history development. My views were very different from ordinary people, and I was often viewed as a man with "extravagant opinions." That's why I didn't want to study, I did not want to learn something that is not true. I got a press card and became free-lance journalist. 

In 1998 I joined Project Glow, because it was the only one group interested in UFOs in Prague. I began to pursue cases of UFO abduction, because I received many letters of people describing this experience. I put together an investigation team with four colleagues. Based on my experience with this phenomenon, I wrote a book “Close Encounter of Fourth Kind” (UFO abduction in Czech Republic) (Votobia, 2002), where I collected 10 cases I explored with my team. To date we register over 130 similar cases in our database. (One is listed below).

2009 was a milestone year because of a shocking event. The main activity of Project Glow is supposed to be to gather global data and information about UFO sightings and to subsequently evaluate and process the data statistically. However, this project is too static. In my experience, they got nowhere fast and have no connection with foreign colleagues. Their evaluations are superficial and some of them are the real "armchair researchers," who prefer finding "natural explanations." Most of their researchers are debunkers and the group leader picks out carefully sceptical and very critical minded members. Exopolitics was vigorously rejected as baloney without studying it at all. They have begun to demonize Exopolitics and made a mockery of Exopolitics. 

What we found out was absolutely stunning. The leader of this project has been an intelligence officer working for the Office for Foreign Relations and Information - Literally speaking it is the Intelligence service of the Czech Republic and partly belongs to Ministry of Internal Affairs. Project Glow has been compiled to obtain from their unsuspecting members information on sightings and witness testimonies for further intelligence processing. 

Together with four of my colleagues, I immediately left the project, and established an Exopolitics group (2009). Now, we have about 15-20 exopolitical members or active supporters. 

As an example I attach one of the intriguing cases. Interestingly, many participants later experienced "strange dreams", where they saw themselves on board of a spaceship and depicted the weird scenes with “lying on the tables”, watching something like “monitors” with “holograms”. They were shown a variety of “technical devices” or propulsion technology. All “dreamers” agreed that the beings were very tall and human-like in appearance. They described them as neither positive nor negative. 

According to an eyewitness living in a small city south east of Prague a very interesting case occurred during a summer camp where the children attending it experienced encounters with strange beings. The case also reports about multiple observations of the Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) phenomenon. 

A strange incident occurred during a summer camp for children

This incident happened in 1991. My daughter Petra was about to attend a summer camp for children, which she does every year. At the time she was 9-10 years old, and, like all school children, she was eagerly anticipating the upcoming two months of summer vacation. At the time we had recently moved to a new apartment, and while the children were attending the summer camp I used the time to complete some pending work in it. 

The summer camp was located within the vicinity of Prague, in a place called Pelhrimov, approximately 120 km south east. After the summer camp was completed the children returned to their homes. During a chat with my daughter we asked her about the summer camp experiences, and she astonished me by asking what I thought about flying saucers. I was of course wondering why she asked about this, especially since the family never discussed such topics as UFOs. We were simply not interested in it.

After Petra had asked me this question, it seemed she could sense my hesitance and uncertainty, so she decided to solve the situation herself. She called on her friend, who was on a visit and who had also attended the summer camp. Both girls began to describe what they experienced while attending the summer camp only some days before.

Where do the lights come from?

It was during the last evening, and all the children were gathered around a large camp fire singing songs, playing guitar, and basically enjoying the last weekend before they were to head home the following day. Later that evening, around 10 or 11pm, the darkness around the camp suddenly changed, and the place was illuminated. 

Everybody was wondering what was going on, and the children as well as the camp leaders raised their heads to watch above and see where the lights came from. All the camp participants could then observe a big flying saucer silently crossing the night sky. In a similar way as spotlights the saucer emitted three beams of light that were shining over the whole camp.

According to witnesses around the saucer itself there was a huge glow making it look as blue as a clear day. While it hovered in a still manner above the camp site its beams searched the ground easily, and of course, shortly after chaos ensued among the children and adults as well. Immediately the camp leaders brought the children into their respective tents, and a curfew was immediately implemented allowing no one to leave or look outside their tents.  

But some of the most curious children kept peeping out of the tents towards the night sky. The flying saucer had set in motion and moved itself closer to the nearby forest. Again it stopped and hovered silently above some tall spruces. Disconnected from the bottom of the saucer, a large glowing sphere descended slowly towards the ground behind the forest. Shortly after a loud noise and a roar was heard, and after some time had passed the saucer started to hover above the forest again. Paradoxically, while a strict curfew had been implemented, the ban was only adhered to by the adults.

Three strange figures

A small group of girls, among them my daughter Petra, decided to pretend to go to the rest room so that they could escape from the tent to undertake an adventurous expedition. Their curiosity was great, and beside, the rest room facility was placed right next to the forest anyway. While heading back to the camp from the adventurous expedition two of the girls suddenly froze. Inside the forest on the path leading to the camp [three] tall white figures were observed, approximately two meters in height. To the girls these figures resembled tall people dressed in space suits. To see their faces was not possible since they wore something akin to modern-day space helmets. In a rather surprisingly manner the group of girls and the three white figures kept gazing at each other. 

What followed appeared to be some kind of mutual examination, and shortly after the white figures began to retreat. In a slow motion they turned around and headed back into the forest. The girls ran all the way to their tents and informed the camp leaders about their experience. Apparently the girls were not the only ones who had observed the white figures. Other children had observed them as well. After the incident when the saucer first started to emerge over the camp the children had observed a sphere ascending over the top of the trees before returning to the flying saucer. Others observed that the sphere had withdrawn into the bottom of the saucer. The UFO then slowly moved away silently, and eventually the camp fell asleep.

Who made such a mess?

The next morning when everybody woke up no one could believe what they saw. A big camp fire leaves very little fine dust and ashes, and in any case, this is often scattered immediately around the camp fire area. But a sorry sight was presented to the camp participants. Everything that was composed of wood, such as benches that the children sat on around the camp fire, had been chopped and demolished into small pieces. Even the axe that had been left outside by the camp fire site had been demolished, and only its metal part was intact. How the camp destruction had happened could not be explained by anybody. Fortunately, the cabins and tents which the camp participants slept in remained absolutely undamaged. 

After the morning cleaning routine, a group of the oldest children set off towards the place where the sphere or ball of light appeared the previous night. The site was only located a five-minute walk away. At the site the group could see what appeared to be a landing area. The clearing was small surrounded by high trees. The group also observed a circular pit in the middle of what was understood to be the landing area. They estimated it was six meters in diameter and one meter in depth. The edge of the pit was cut very precisely. The area of the forest ground where flora and fauna existed had disappeared. The examination completed by the group left them both shocked and surprised since they concluded that the unknown nightly visit from the night before had taken pieces of wood with them. Shortly after the examination the group returned to the camp to meet the parents who were waiting for them to take them home.

This case was released by Exopolitics Czech Republic.