This is what's wrong with the world. We're looking at potential habitable worlds 40 light years away instead of fixing the Earth we're already inhabiting.

"The earth is dying and we're here like."

The idea that we're not alone in the universe has influenced artists and scientist for generations. And while art has been exploring the depths of what life on another planet could mean, actual scientific fact has come up short in providing actual images of what a potentially habitable planet might look like.

This is why NASA's announcement that they've found habitable-zone planets outside of our solar system is such a milestone discovery. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revelead the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of which are located firmly in the habitatble zone, the area around the parents star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.

Seven Earth-sized planets have been observed by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope around a tiny, nearby, ultra-cool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1. Image: NASA

"This is the most exciting result I have seen in the 14 years of Spitzer operations," said Sean Carey, manager of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California. "Spitzer will follow up in the fall to further refine our understanding of these planets so that the James Webb Space Telescope can follow up. More observations of the system are sure to reveal more secrets.”

What does it mean for life here on planet earth? Not much. But for Michael Gillon, lead author of the paper and the principal investigator of the TRAPPIST exoplanet survey at the University of Liege, Belgium, the set of seven planets are "... the best target yet for studying the atmospheres of potentially habitable, Earth-size worlds."

Watch a video that sums up everything we just typed out:

All images of planets are artists' conceptions.

NASA has Found Seven Earth-Like Planets 40 Light-Years Away

This is what's wrong with the world. We're looking at potential habitable worlds 40 light years away instead of fixing the Earth we're already inhabiting.