Driver Had Been Planning Attack in Manhattan for Weeks, Police Say

 

Caroline Ventura leaving flowers on Wednesday near the bike path in Manhattan where a day earlier a motorist killed 

eight people. 

The driver who sped down a crowded bike path in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday, killing eight people and injuring 11, had been planning the attack for weeks and appeared to have connections to people who were the subjects of terrorism investigations, police officials said on Wednesday.

As counterterrorism investigators drilled into whether the attacker, identified by officials as Sayfullo Saipov, had meaningful ties to terrorist organizations, it also became clear that some of those close to the attacker had feared for years that he was heading down the path of extremism.

Mr. Saipov, 29, rented a pickup truck from a Home Depot in New Jersey before driving onto a bike path, crashing into a school bus, jumping out with a pellet gun and paintball gun and shouting “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” the authorities said. Near the truck was a handwritten note with a few lines of Arabic indicating allegiance to the Islamic State, law enforcement officials said.

Trail of Terror in the Manhattan Truck Attack

Diagrams showing what was hit along the route of the attack. 

As investigators looked into Mr. Saipov’s history, they discovered that he had been on the radar of federal authorities. Law enforcement officials said Mr. Saipov, who is from Uzbekistan, had come to the federal authorities’ attention after coming into contact with an Uzbek who was under investigation by terrorism investigators in New York.

4 minutes ago

As investigators looked into Mr. Saipov’s history, they discovered that he had been on the radar of federal authorities."Every hour,...

“We will not be cowed,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Mr. Saipov came to the United States in 2010 and was a legal permanent resident. He drew concerns at a mosque in Tampa that he attended before moving to New Jersey.

A preacher at the mosque, Abdula, who agreed to speak on the condition that only his first name be used because he feared reprisals from other radicals, said he tried to steer Mr. Saipov away from the path of extremism.

“I used to tell him, ‘Hey, you are too much emotional,’” Abdula said. “‘Read books more. Learn your religion first,’ He did not learn religion properly. That’s the main disease in the Muslim community.”

He added, “I never thought that he would go to this extreme.”

Abdula said he met Mr. Saipov on a visit to Ohio, where Mr. Saipov lived soon after he arrived in the United States. He attended Mr. Saipov’s wedding and said he even worked for a time as a dispatcher in a trucking company that Mr. Saipov owned.

Mr. Saipov moved to Florida in the summer of 2015, Abdula said. He struggled to find regular work there, sometimes going one or two months without a job. When things went smoothly, he could be a kind person. But he was prone to explosions of anger.

“He had a character problem,” he said.

Abdula recalled Mr. Saipov getting emotional over issues related to the Muslim community. He said Mr. Saipov was devoted to outward observances of Islam, like his beard, but not necessarily the substance. Abdula said he never spoke of committing violence.

“I didn’t hear him talking about killing people,” Abdula said.

Mr. Saipov moved to New Jersey in March to be closer to his wife’s family. She was due to have their third child, his first son, who was born sometime in the summer, probably July, Abdula said.

“He was hoping to have a son for a long time,” Abdula said. “I would never think that he would do this kind of thing.”

EU wants Rohingya’s safe, dignified return to Rakhine

 

Rohingya refugees walk after crossing the Naf river at the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Palong Khali, near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh November 1, 2017.

European Union (EU) Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides today said EU wanted “safe and dignified” return of Rohingyas to their homeland in Myanmar as he called on foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali at his office.

“Of course, I hope the Rohingyas will be able to return soon in a safe and dignified way in Myanmar's Rakhine State,” he told a media briefing emerging from the meeting with Ali at the State Guest House Padma this afternoon.

Stylianides, who earlier, described the Rohingya crisis as the world's “fastest-growing crisis” while visiting their makeshift abodes in Cox's Bazar, today stressed the need for political solution of Rohingya crisis through Bangladesh's continued engagement with Myanmar as the crisis originated there.

He said the two governments should continue to engage in dialogue to discuss a lot about the issue as “this is the only way to ensure safe and dignified return of Rohingya people in their homes.”

Stylianides described the state of humanitarian and human rights violation in Myanmar's Rakhine State as “beyond imagination” adding that the EU and international community expressed serious concerns over situation in Rakhine state.

He, however, said EU would expand its support for Bangladesh for the cause of forcibly displaced Rohingyas while acknowledging problems caused by the massive exodus of Rohingyas since August 25.

“I am visiting Bangladesh to send a strong message that EU stands with Bangladesh in this difficult time,” he said.

The EU Commissioner thanked the government and the people of Bangladesh for giving shelter to the distressed Rohingyas and deeply appreciated Bangladesh's humanity and generosity.

Earlier, in the meeting the foreign minister briefed the EU Commissioner about the current situation regarding influx of Rohingyas and apprised that over one million Rohingyas are now living in Bangladesh.

He also mentioned the presence of this huge number of forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals created massive socio-economic and environmental challenge for Bangladesh.

The foreign minister also sought EU's sustained political support so a sustainable solution to the crisis could be reached in light of the recommendations of Kofi Annan Commission.

The European Commissioner arrived in the city from Cox's Bazar today after visiting the Rohingya camps where the forcibly displaced Myanmar Nationals have taken shelter.

Breastfeeding for 2 months cuts the risk of SIDS in half

 

New research has found that breastfeeding for at least two months cuts a baby's risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) almost in half.

A new international study has found that breastfeeding for just two months cuts a baby's risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) almost in half.

Carried out by the University of Virginia School of Medicine, the research looked at eight major international studies that examined 2,259 cases of SIDS and 6,894 control infants where death did not occur.

The results showed that breastfeeding for just two months reduces the risk of SIDS by almost half, and the longer babies are breastfed the greater the protection. Breastfeeding for less than two months did not offer such a benefit.

Another important finding from the study showed that both partial and exclusive breastfeeding reduces the risk of SIDS, which could come as good news for women who can't or choose not to rely solely on breastfeeding.

Researcher Kawai Tanabe, MPH, of the University of Virginia School of Medicine commented on the findings saying, "These results are very powerful! Breastfeeding is beneficial for so many reasons, and this is really an important one."

The large collective sample used in the research also provides convincing evidence of the reliability and consistency of the findings, despite differing cultural behaviours across countries.

Previous studies have also suggested that breastfeeding is associated with a decreased risk of SIDS, the leading cause of death for infants between one month and one year of age, but this is the first study to determine the duration necessary to provide that protection.

Although it remains unclear why breastfeeding has a protective effect, the researchers suggest that it may provide immune benefits and have a beneficial effect on infant sleeping patterns.

Based on the results, the researchers are now calling for "ongoing concerted efforts" to increase rates of breastfeeding around the world, with the team reporting that data from 2007 showed a quarter of U.S. babies had never been breastfed.

The World Health Organization has set a goal of ensuring that more than half of infants worldwide are breastfed exclusively for at least six months by 2025.

"It's great for mothers to know that breastfeeding for at least two months provides such a strong protective effect against SIDS," said researcher Rachel Moon, MD, of the UVA School of Medicine and the UVA Children's Hospital. "We strongly support international and national efforts to promote breastfeeding."

Theresa May Loses Overall Majority in U.K. Parliament

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Amid Uncerta Theresa May

Amid Uncertainty, Theresa May Calls for Stability

With elections putting her majority in doubt, Prime Minister Theresa May declared that the Conservatives would bring stability to Britain if they won the most seats in Parliament.

LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain suffered a major setback in a tumultuous election on Thursday, losing her overall majority in Parliament and throwing her government into uncertainty less than two weeks before it is scheduled to begin negotiations over withdrawing from the European Union.

Mrs. May, the Conservative leader, called the snap election three years early, expecting to cruise to a smashing victory that would win her a mandate to see Britain through the long and difficult negotiations with European leaders over the terms of leaving the union.

But according to results reported early Friday morning, the extraordinary gamble Mrs. May made in calling the election backfired. She could no longer command enough seats to avoid a hung Parliament, meaning that no party has enough lawmakers to establish outright control.

With all but one of the 650 seats in the House of Commons accounted for, the BBC reported that Mrs. May’s Conservatives would remain the largest party. But they were projected to win only 318 seats, down from the 331 they won in 2015, and eight seats short of a majority.

Continue reading the main story

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Britons quickly started wondering whether Mrs. May would have to resign.

One Conservative lawmaker, Anna Soubry, said on national television that it had been a “dreadful campaign” and would force the prime minister to “consider her position.”

The opposition Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, was projected to be on track for 262 seats, up 30 from 2015, significantly elevating Mr. Corbyn’s standing after predictions that his party would be further weakened.

“Whatever the final result, we have already changed the face of British politics,” Mr. Corbyn said.

Photo

The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, arriving at party headquarters in London on Friday. Credit Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Last month, in an effort to show “just how much is at stake” in the election, Mrs. May acknowledged that even a small loss of seats would amount to a defeat.

“The cold, hard fact is that if I lose just six seats, I will lose this election, and Jeremy Corbyn will be sitting down to negotiate with the presidents, prime ministers and chancellors of Europe,” she  

wrote in The Daily Mail.

But early on Friday, Mrs. May hinted that her Conservative Party would try to form a government even if it did not have a majority, arguing that Britain needed “a period of stability.”

If the Conservative Party “has won the most seats and probably the most votes, then it will be incumbent on us,” she said.

The Scottish National Party was projected to fall to 35 seats from 56, while the centrist Liberal Democrats were projected to win 12 seats, up four from 2015.

The forecast raised the prospect that neither major party would be able to form a government without help from another party. If a coalition cannot be formed, another election could be in the offing.

And there was a wild card. Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein party, which won seven seats, said it would not occupy them, in keeping with its longstanding policy. That would lower the threshold for Mrs. May’s party to establish an effective majority.

The former chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, said that for Mrs. May losing a majority would be “completely catastrophic” for her and the Conservative Party. But he added that it was also difficult to see how the Labour Party could put together a coalition government.

 

Voters leaving a polling station at a former fire station in London. Credit Leon Neal/Getty Images

“So it’s on a real knife edge,” he said.

Clearly, Britons confounded expectations and the betting markets once again. The uncertainty could complicate Britain’s exit from the European Union, known as Brexit. Negotiations over the withdrawal are scheduled to start in just 11 days. European leaders want a stable, credible British government capable of negotiating, but Mrs. May’s plea to voters for a strong mandate for Brexit failed badly.

The official outcome of the vote may not be known until lunchtime on Friday. But the British pound fell sharply after a national exit poll showing that the Conservatives could lose their majority. Within seconds of the exit poll’s release, the pound lost more than 2 cents against the dollar, falling from $1.2955 to $1.2752.

Simon Hix, a professor of political science at the London School of Economics, said the projections showed the public’s resistance to the complete break from Europe that Mrs. May has championed. Still, Mrs. May was set to win, he asserted. “She hasn’t lost this election,” he said.

But Steven Fielding, professor of political history at the University of Nottingham, said that he was almost speechless at the projections. If they held, he said, Mrs. May “is gone.”

“It’s just a matter of time — even if they have a reduced majority,” he continued. “She asked for a mandate, she expected a strong endorsement, so her judgment is completely under question.”

“She was terrible in the campaign,” he added. “She is primarily the person who will be seen to be responsible for this.”

Kallum Pickering, a senior economist at Berenberg Bank in London, also suggested that Mrs. May was in trouble.

“Even if May manages to cling on to a majority, we see a real risk that her leadership is challenged, especially following an unsuccessful election campaign that has managed to both weaken her personal credibility and make far-left Labour leader Corbyn relevant again,” he said as the votes were being counted.

Interactive Graphic

How Britain Voted

Results and analysis from the British general election.

OPEN Interactive Graphic

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Given the two terrorist attacks that took place during the campaign, security was tight on Thursday as Britons voted, with a heavy police presence.

Maria Balas, 28, a waitress, said security was the prime issue. “England is under attack and at this time we need a strong leader more than ever,” Ms. Balas said after casting her vote for the governing Conservative Party. “I don’t like Theresa May, and I wouldn’t have bothered to vote if this election was all about giving her more power to take us into the mess of Brexit, but now we are dealing with a security crisis and I think she is the most qualified person in the running who can deal with that.”

In London’s eastern borough of Hackney, however, young people seemed more concerned about future job prospects.

“The Tories only care about the rich and their interests,” said Luke Wright, 26, who earns £7.50 an hour, or about $9.70, working at a stationery shop. “If Labour won I’d have a chance to make more cash and get out of this job that I’m overqualified for.”

Mrs. May, 60, rolled the dice on April 18 when she broke her promise not to call an early election, three years ahead of schedule, but did so only because she believed the dice were loaded in her favor.

She went into this election with a 20-point lead in most polls and a working majority of just 17 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament.

While she was personally against Britain’s exit from the European Union, or Brexit, in the June 2016 referendum, the vote in favor caused David Cameron to resign, and she emerged as a kind of accidental prime minister.

But she promised voters that she would honor the results of the referendum, using her reputation for toughness “to get the best deal for Britain.”

Counting votes in Emirates Arena in Glasgow on Thursday. Credit Andrew Milligan/Press Association, via Associated Press

Now, her decision to call a snap election is raising comparisons to Mr. Cameron’s decision to hold the referendum in the first place.

“May is a policy politician; she does a very good job in office, and she is a lousy campaigner,” said Robert Worcester, the founder of the MORI/Ipsos polling and research organization. “There was just mistake after mistake after mistake coming through.”

Mrs. May pledged to curtail immigration, an effort to reach out to the nearly 13 percent of voters in 2015 who voted for the U.K. Independence Party, whose platform was anti-immigrant and pro-Brexit. Many of those voters, especially in the West Midlands and the north, were traditionally Labour supporters, but with the collapse of UKIP, many of them were thought to lean to the Conservatives.

That meant Labour-held seats seemed ripe for the picking, especially since northerners were not enamored of Mr. Corbyn, 68, a far-left urbanite. He seemed weak on defense and security, shaky on economic management and passionate about places like Venezuela and Nicaragua, and had once had strong sympathies for the Irish Republican Army and liked to make jam.

And the centrist Liberal Democrats, who emphasized rerunning the Brexit debate in a second referendum, were getting very little traction. While the business elite were laser-focused on the issue of Britain’s future relationship with the European Union, opinion polls showed that the general population had moved beyond that and cared more about domestic issues.

Strangely, for such an important issue, the economic impact of Brexit barely figured in this campaign, perhaps because its strongest effects, should they materialize, will not be felt for some time.

Mrs. May and the Conservatives ran an unusually personal campaign, trying to emphasize the differences between her and Mr. Corbyn on questions of leadership, reliability, economic competence and security, helped by the rabidly anti-Corbyn, pro-Brexit tabloid press.

But the Conservatives did not count on her poor performance on television and shaky presence on the campaign trail, particularly when confronted by hostile questioning. Rather than “strong and stable,” as her mantra went, Mrs. May could seem brittle and querulous, repeating slogans rather than dipping into substance.

The news media outside 10 Downing Street in London on Friday. Credit Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Her party’s manifesto was also vague on figures, and her effort to find more funds for social benefits backfired when she announced, with little consultation with her cabinet colleagues, her intention to charge the better-off more for extended benefits, saying that old people could keep assets up to 100,000 pounds, including the value of their homes. Quickly labeled “the dementia tax,” it damaged her badly with the Conservatives’ main supporters: older Britons.

“Theresa May doesn’t look happy on the campaign trail,” said Mark Wickham-Jones, professor of political science at the University of Bristol. “And Labour have proved quite effective at chipping away at things like her reluctance to debate.”

At the same time, Mr. Corbyn, who survived an attempt last year by his own members of Parliament to unseat him as Labour leader, had a very good campaign. Appealing to the young, especially in the big cities, Mr. Corbyn ran on a platform promising more social justice, free college tuition, more money for the National Health Service and welfare, the re-nationalization of the railways and utilities, and much higher taxes on corporations and those earning over £80,000, about $104,000, a year.

His performances on television were calm and avuncular, with a touch of humor. And as the campaign wore on, he appeared to win back the support of most Labour voters in 2015, plus some Liberal Democrats and Greens.

The polls narrowed. But the Conservatives never lost their lead in any major poll. And party professionals on the ground, especially in marginal seats in the Midlands and the north that the Conservatives had targeted, reported continuing resistance to Mr. Corbyn as a credible prime minister.

The campaign was also marred by two terrorist attacks that caused numerous casualties, in Manchester on May 22 and then, last Saturday, in London. These also seemed to work against Mrs. May, at least at first. As home secretary for six years before becoming prime minister, she was criticized for the security services’ failure to stop the plots and for supporting cuts in beat policing.

Yet, late polling indicated that she benefited from her tough response — especially after the London attack, when she promised new counterterrorism legislation — and had widened the gap with Labour at the end.

The candidates spent the last day of official campaigning racing around the country — Mrs. May by jet, Mr. Corbyn by train. “They underestimated us, didn’t they?” he told a rally in Glasgow.

Correction: June 8, 2017

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of parliamentary seats held by the Scottish National Party heading into the election. It was 56, not 59.

UK Polls: Tulip, Rushanara, Rupa re-elected

Bangladeshi-origin candidates Tulip Rizwana Siddiq, Rushanara Ali and Rupa Huq were re-elected in UK national election, according to primary results.

From Labour Party in the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency, Tulip Siddiq bagged 34,464 votes while her Conservative counterpart Claire-Louise Leyland got 18, 904 votes, says BBC polls result.

She is the granddaughter of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and niece of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Labour Party candidate Rupa Huq retained the Ealing Central and Acton seat for Labour with 33,037 votes while her counterpart Conservative Party candidate Joy Morrissey got 19,230 votes.

Her ancestral home is in Pabna district of Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, Rushanara Ali, the first British lawmaker with roots in Bangladesh, has secured a third consecutive victory in her safe Bethnal Green and Bow constituency in east London.

Misir Ali coming to the big screen

Jaya venturing into film production with Humayun Ahmed's “Debi”

                                     Jaya Ahsan

 

 

Even after five years of his demise, Humayun Ahmed was arguably the biggest-selling writer at the Ekushey Book Fair, a testament to his popularity as a storyteller; and to anyone who claims to be a fan of Humayun's novels, Misir Ali is a character as close to their heart as Himu. An eccentric psychologist solving mysteries driven by pure logic, Misir Ali is of the most significant fictional characters in contemporary Bangla literature, and now he is coming to the big screen in what promises to be a power-packed affair.

“Debi”, the first Misir Ali novel, is being adapted into a film by Anam Biswas, featuring a powerhouse cast of Chanchal Chowdhury, Jaya Ahsan, Iresh Zaker, Animesh Aich and Sabnam Faria. While the name Anam Biswas may not sound familiar, fans will probably be assured to know that he is one of the writers of “Aynabaji”, and a creative force to be reckoned with name among industry insiders. The film will be the first production of Jaya Ahsan's production house C te Cinema, and Jaya has already secured a National Film Grant for the project.

“I wanted to begin my film production with a classic, and that is why I chose this” Jaya told The Daily Star. “Genre-specific films are not common in our country, so I wanted to also have a film that adheres to a specific genre. This is going to be a mystery film,” she added. “Anam has adapted the story for the screen and written the dialogues. He is a capable director, and I felt he can do justice to the story.”

Chanchal Chowdhury, high off the critical and massive commercial success of “Aynabaji”, will play Misir Ali in the film. Jaya will be portraying the character of Ranu, with Animesh Aich essaying the role of her husband, Anis. Iresh Zaker plays Ahmed Saber, opposite Sabnam Faria as Nilu. “The casting was the director's decision; I helped him with it,” Jaya added.

Anam Biswas remains cautiously excited about the project. “We have only done the screenplay so far, I don't know where this film will eventually end up taking us. That will be a journey that the actors and the whole team take together, and we reach somewhere good,” he told The Daily Star. “Millions of people have read Misir Ali, and they all have their own mental images of the character. That is the critical part. We will of course have our own interpretation. We don't have too many iconic characters in our contemporary literature, and I feel like we need them … maybe a 'heroic' character. So that is something we will be trying. Now, the characters and the story will come out through the actors. So that also remains to be seen how that takes shape.”

About the casting choices, Anam shared a core principle that he followed. “I tried to find actors who have the essence of the characters in them. It's not easy to find actors who perfectly match the characters. You cannot get characterizations like Ben Kingsley as Gandhi (referring to Richard Attenborough's 1982 biopic 'Gandhi' that won Oscars for Attenborough and Kingsley, as well as Best Picture), but we tried to find actors who resonate the characters.”

Chanchal Chowdhury, meanwhile, says it is a huge challenge to be taking on such an assignment. “After the success of 'Aynabaji', I initially did not want to do any films unless it's an exceptional work. I played six characters in that film, and those images are still in people's minds, so I wanted to take a hiatus from the big screen until those images sort of faded. But when I was offered this role, it was hard to pass on, because it is such an iconic character, and if you let go of something like this you don't know when you will get something like this again. I had read 'Debi' and its sequel 'Nishithini' multiple times but it was a long time ago. Misir Ali is one of my most favourite fictional characters. So I took my time, but I could not say no to such an exciting opportunity as an actor. And now that I have, it is a challenge and also a bit of a pressure, for two reasons: firstly because it is the character of Misir Ali, and also because it is my follow-up to 'Aynabaji'. So I am really looking forward to it.”

The film is ready to go on floors later this month, but Jaya doesn't have a release date in mind. “This is the first film for my production house, and I don't want to plan too far ahead. But I hope to finish the filming in one lot, maybe with a break,” she informed.

There have been previous adaptations of Misir Ali on TV and theatre, though. Theatre troupe Bahubachan adapted “Debi” for a stage play in 1994, and then again in 2008. The first television appearance of Misir Ali was with “Onnobhubon”, in which Abul Hayat played the character. Animesh Aich, who is playing a major role in this film, had directed two TV plays based on Misir Ali novels – “Brihonnola” and “Nishad” for ntv, in which Shatabdi Wadud and Shahriar Shubho played the character.

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Security beefed up at airports, prisons after ‘suicide blast’

Authorities have beefed up security at all airports and prisons in Bangladesh following “suicide blast” at proposed headquarters of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) in Dhaka.

Additional precautions have been taken at every airport across the country following the incident, said AKM Rezaul Karim, public relations officer of Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB).

Number of security personnel has also been increased at all entrances of the airports, he added.

READ MORE: Unexploded bomb found near bomber’s body

Meanwhile, Col Iqbal Hasan, additional inspector general (Jail), told The Daily Star that they have stepped up security measures at all the prisons across the country.

Under new security measures, jail guards have been advised to wear vests on duty and rigorously screen inmates before taking them into prisons.

There will be strict surveillance surrounding jail areas and the forces have been instructed to take appropriate measures if they encounter any suspicious activities, he also said.

7 Earth-Size Planets Orbit Dwarf Star, NASA and European Astronomers Say

These new Earth-size planets orbit a dwarf star named Trappist-1 about 40 light years from Earth. Some of them could have water on their surfaces.

Not just one, but seven Earth-size planets that could potentially harbor life have been identified orbiting a tiny star not too far away, offering the first realistic opportunity to search for signs of alien life outside the solar system.

The planets orbit a dwarf star named Trappist-1, about 40 light-years, or 235 trillion miles, from Earth. That is quite close in cosmic terms, and by happy accident, the orientation of the orbits of the seven planets allows them to be studied in great detail.

One or more of the exoplanets in this new system could be at the right temperature to be awash in oceans of water, astronomers said, based on the distance of the planets from the dwarf star.

“This is the first time so many planets of this kind are found around the same star,” Michael Gillon, an astronomer at the University of Liege in Belgium and the leader of an international team that has been observing Trappist-1, said during a telephone news conference organized by the journal Nature, which published

Scientists could even discover compelling evidence of aliens.

“I think that we have made a crucial step toward finding if there is life out there,” said Amaury H. M. J. Triaud, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge in England and another member of the research team. “Here, if life managed to thrive and releases gases similar to that we have on Earth, then we will know.”

Cool red dwarfs are the most common type of star, so astronomers are likely to find more planetary systems like that around Trappist-1 in the coming years.

“You can just imagine how many worlds are out there that have a shot to becoming a habitable ecosystem,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s science mission directorate, said during a NASA news conference on Wednesday. “Are we alone out there? We’re making a step forward with this — a leap forward, in fact — towards answering that question.”

Telescopes on the ground now and the Hubble Space Telescope in orbit will be able to discern some of the molecules in the planetary atmospheres. The James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch next year, will peer at the infrared wavelengths of light, ideal for studying Trappist-1.

Comparisons among the different conditions of the seven will also be revealing.

“The Trappist-1 planets make the search for life in the galaxy imminent,” said Sara Seager, an astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not a member of the research team. “For the first time ever, we don’t have to speculate. We just have to wait and then make very careful observations and see what is in the atmospheres of the Trappist planets.”

Even if the planets all turn out to be lifeless, scientists will have learned more about what keeps life from flourishing.

Astronomers always knew other stars must have planets, but until a couple of decades ago, they had not been able to spot them. Now they have confirmed more than 3,400, according to the Open Exoplanet Catalog. (An exoplanet is a planet around a star other than the sun.)

The authors of the Nature paper include Didier Queloz, one of the astronomers who discovered in 1995 the first known exoplanet around a sunlike star.

While the Trappist planets are about the size of Earth — give or take 25 percent in diameter — the star is very different from our sun.

Trappist-1, named after a robotic telescope in the Atacama Desert of Chile that the astronomers initially used to study the star, is what astronomers call an “ultracool dwarf,” with only one-twelfth the mass of the sun and a surface temperature of 4,150 degrees Fahrenheit, much cooler than the 10,000 degrees radiating from the sun. Trappist is a shortening of Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope.

During the NASA news conference, Dr. Gillon gave a simple analogy: If our sun were the size of a basketball, Trappist-1 would be a golf ball.

Until the last few years, scientists looking for life elsewhere in the galaxy have focused on finding Earth-size planets around sun-like stars. But it is hard to pick out the light of a planet from the glare of a bright star. Small dim dwarfs are much easier to study.

Last year, astronomers announced the discovery of an Earth-size planet around Proxima Centauri, the closest star at 4.24 light-years away. That discovery was made using a different technique that does not allow for study of the atmosphere.

Trappist-1 is about 8 percent the size of the sun. Credit ESO

Trappist-1 periodically dimmed noticeably, indicating that a planet might be passing in front of the star, blocking part of the light. From the shape of the dips, the astronomers calculate the size of the planet.

Trappist-1’s light dipped so many times that the astronomers concluded, in research reported last year, that there were at least three planets around the star. Telescopes from around the world then also observed Trappist-1, as did the Spitzer Space Telescope of NASA.

Spitzer observed Trappist-1 nearly around the clock for 20 days, capturing 34 transits. Together with the ground observations, it let the scientists calculate not three planets, but seven. The planets are too small and too close to the star to be photographed directly.

All seven are very close to the dwarf star, circling more quickly than the planets in our solar system. The innermost completes an orbit in just 1.5 days. The farthest one completes an orbit in about 20 days. That makes the planetary system more like the moons of Jupiter than a larger planetary system like our solar system.

“They form a very compact system,” Dr. Gillon said, “the planets being pulled close to each other and very close to the star.”

In addition, the orbital periods of the inner six suggest that the planets formed farther away from the star and then were all gradually pulled inward, Dr. Gillon said.

Because the planets are so close to a cool star, their surfaces could be at the right temperatures to have water flow, considered one of the essential ingredients for life.

The fourth, fifth and sixth planets orbit in the star’s “habitable zone,” where the planets could sport oceans. So far that is just speculation, but by measuring which wavelengths of light are blocked by the planet, scientists will be able to figure out what gases float in the atmospheres of the seven planets.

So far, they have confirmed for the two innermost planets that they are not enveloped in hydrogen. That means they are rocky like Earth, ruling out the possibility that they were mini-Neptune gas planets that are prevalent around many other stars.

Because the planets are so close to Trappist-1, they have quite likely become “gravitationally locked” to the star, always with one side of the planets facing the star, much as it is always the same side of Earth’s moon facing Earth. That would mean one side would be warmer, but an atmosphere would distribute heat, and the scientists said that would not be an insurmountable obstacle for life.

For a person standing on one of the planets, it would be a dim environment, with perhaps only about one two-hundredth the light that we see from the sun on Earth, Dr. Triaud said. (That would still be brighter than the moon at night.) The star would be far bigger. On Trappist-1f, the fifth planet, the star would be three times as wide as the sun seen from Earth.

As for the color of the star, “we had a debate about that,” Dr. Triaud said.

Some of the scientists expected a deep red, but with most of the star’s light emitted at infrared wavelengths and out of view of human eyes, perhaps a person would “see something more salmon-y,” Dr. Triaud said.

NASA released a poster illustrating what the sky of the fourth planet might look like.

If observations reveal oxygen in a planet’s atmosphere, that could point to photosynthesis of plants — although not conclusively. But oxygen together with methane, ozone and carbon dioxide, particularly in certain proportions, “would tell us that there is life with 99 percent confidence,” Dr. Gillon said.

Astronomers expect that a few decades of technological advances are needed before similar observations can be made of Earthlike planets around larger, brighter sunlike stars.

Dr. Triaud said that if there is life around Trappist-1, “then it’s good we didn’t wait too long.”

“If there isn’t, then we have learned something quite deep about where life can emerge,” he continued.

The discovery might also mean that scientists who have been searching for radio signals from alien civilizations might also have been searching in the wrong places if most habitable planets orbit dwarfs, which live far longer than larger stars like the sun.

The SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., is using the Allen Telescope Array, a group of 42 radio dishes in California, to scrutinize 20,000 red dwarfs. “This result is kind of a justification for that project,” said Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the institute.

“If you’re looking for complex biology — intelligent aliens that might take a long time to evolve from pond scum — older could be better,” Dr. Shostak said. “It seems a good bet that the majority of clever beings populating the universe look up to see a dim, reddish sun hanging in their sky. And at least they wouldn’t have to worry about sun block.”

 

Correction: February 22, 2017

An earlier version of this article named the wrong telescope that is trained on the Trappist-1 dwarf star. It is the Spitzer Space Telescope, not the Kepler. The article also misstated how many days it takes for the planet farthest from Trappist-1 to orbit the star. It is about 20 days, not 12.35.