NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) discovered another Earth-sized planet orbiting a star.
Using the agency’s Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists confirmed that their find—dubbed TOI 700 d—could boast the right conditions for liquid water on its surface.
The new world joins several others in the TRAPPIST-1 system, as well as those discovered by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope.
“TESS was designed … specifically to find Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby stars,” Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA, said in a statement. “Discovering TOI 700 d is a key science finding for TESS.”
Launched in April 2018, TESS is on the hunt for alien planets circling nearby stars.
One such celestial body—the small, cool TOI 700 M dwarf star—appears in 11 of the 13 sky sectors TESS observed during the mission’s first year.
Located some 100 light-years away in the southern constellation of Dorado, it is roughly 40 percent of the Sun’s mass and size, and about half its surface temperature.
“In 11 months of data we saw no flares from the star,” according to Emily Gilbert, a graduate student at the University of Chicago. “Which improves the chances TOI 700 d is habitable and makes it easier to model its atmospheric and surface conditions.”
The only known planet in the system’s habitable zone, TOI 700 d measures 20 percent larger than Earth, orbits every 37 days, and receives from its star 86 percent of the energy that the Sun provides Earth.
Gilbert & Co. presents their findings at this week’s meeting of the American Astronomical Society—where another celestial discovery was featured in a panel discussion.
A paper, co-authored by Goddard Space Flight Center high school intern Wolf Cukier, describes TOI 1338 b, TESS’s first circumbinary planet: a world orbiting two stars.
More on Geek.com:
- NASA Unveils TESS’s Gorgeous Southern Sky Panorama
- NASA’s TESS Mission Spots Eerie Star-Shredding Black Hole
- NASA’s TESS Mission Discovers Its Tiniest Planet to Date
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