06/02/2018 (Agence Europe) – In a press release published on Tuesday 6 February, the European Commission pointed out that it had learnt from its past communication mistakes (see EUROPE 11732) and that the Union had, in fact, contributed to the SPECULOOS space observation project to the tune of €1.96 million through the European Research Council. This project is behind the discovery of water particles on the telluric exoplanet in the Trappist-1 system. The research team had already announced a series of discoveries of telluric planets in the system at the beginning of 2017. Some of these appear to be in a habitable zone (see EUROPE 11732). Carlos Moedas, the European Commissioner for Research, stated, "The European Union has once again made an ambitious choice through its five-year-old bet on this project which provides it with a European Research Council (ERC) grant. (PH)