I really don't believe what is being said about other planets being able to support life. I am interested in it, I am wondering if this is the beginning of the great deception in the Bible. Of course there could be a lot of things that are the great deception. Interested to hear other peoples thoughts.
The star that the planets were found orbiting is an ultra-cool dwarf type star. This star is vastly less massive (having only 8% of the Sun's mass) and cooler than our own star (around twice as cool at 2550 K), but the planets orbit much closer to it (all of them are closer to their star than Mercury is to the Sun), meaning that some lie within the habitable zone. It is essentially a miniature solar system.
Astronomers still have a long way to go before they can state that the planets have the ability to host life however, as they need to do more complete studies on how much solar radiation the planets are receiving (as radiation is generally known to kill life, however extremeophiles could have evolved to survive). The planets are also likely tidally locked so this hinders the emergence of life due to one side of the planet being in constant heat and light, and the other being in constant cold and darkness. However. the land between these two vastly different regions could be suitable.
We have observed a huge number of stars in the observable universe and have found that our star is completely average and has no defining characteristics.
If life has emerged here, surely it has emerged elsewhere.