Astronomer Fergus Simpson of the Barcelona Institute of Space Sciences conducted a statistical simulation of the amount of water and land on the surface of the terrestrial planets and found that most of them should be covered with water almost completely. The findings of the researcher were published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The simulation conducted by the scientist showed that almost all exoplanets suitable for life are planets-oceans, islands of land occupy about 10% of the surface.

It should be noted that water on the Earth occupies 71% of the surface. Simpson explains this uniqueness by the anthropic principle, which in this case may sound - "The Earth is so perfect for life, because life has arisen here".

In addition, Simpson's modeling showed that too vast expanses of continents expand the area of ??difficult deserts.

February 22 at a press conference NASA told about the discovery of seven earth-like planets from the star TRAPPIST-1 - red dwarf in the constellation of Aquarius, which is located at a distance of 40 light years from Earth. Three of the seven planets discovered rotate in the inhabited zone of the star, that is, they can have a life.