NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.

The discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system. All of these seven planets could have liquid water – key to life as we know it – under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone.

“This discovery could be a significant piece in the puzzle of finding habitable environments, places that are conducive to life,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “Answering the question ‘are we alone’ is a top science priority and finding so many planets like these for the first time in the habitable zone is a remarkable step forward toward that goal.”

 

Eoin Treacy's view

One of the biggest mistakes we can make when looking at charts is to succumb to myopia. We can become so interested in the short-term gyrations of what we are personally invested in that we ignore the bigger picture of what is happening in the wider market. 
I personally find the study of planets, beyond our own, fascinating not least because everything we know is terra-focused and there is a universe of information beyond Earth which we tend to interpret through our experience of our home.  

This article from the Cornell Chronicle focusing on the lack of carbonate in Martian rocks and the conundrum that poses for relevant climate models is just such an example. Here is a section:

Additionally, the new NASA study found only tens of millibars (one one-thousandth of sea-level air pressure on Earth) of carbon dioxide present when the lake at Gale Crater existed. If this amount led to the formation of carbonates, they would be virtually imperceptible to the CheMin instrument. The red planet’s current atmosphere is less than 10 millibars of pressure and mostly carbon dioxide.
If there wasn’t enough carbon dioxide on Mars about 3.5 billion years ago, what could have melted the ice enough to make liquid water flow? “We still don't know,” said Fairen.

“It is possible that our climate models are still incomplete and we are missing some pieces of a model to fully understand the puzzle,” said Fairen. “Maybe other gases were present in the atmosphere, capable of providing similar effects to carbon dioxide. Or perhaps the climate was actually cold and the hydrological cycle was similar to that in the polar regions of Earth today.”

Employing the Socratic dictum of accepting that we know nothing and relying on our observation of chart facts and tailoring our own behaviour to what we can observe in the market crowd remains our preferred way of engaging with the market.