The US Aerospace Agency (NASA) has discovered a habitable Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting a star about 100 light-years from Earth. The Transition Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered an Earth-sized exoplanet located in the "habitable zone" of the orbiting Dolphin (Dorado) Constellation, NASA said.

A 'habitable zone', also known as the 'Goldilocks zone', is an area at the right distance from a star for water to be found on a planet's surface and where conditions are neither too hot nor too cold for life.

This exoplanet, named "TOI 700'e", is at a distance from its orbiting star that would allow water to exist on the planet's surface. The planet, which revolves around the star in 28 days, is 95 percent the size of the Earth and consists of rocky cover.

"This is one of the few systems we know of with multiple, small, habitable zone planets," NASA researcher Emily Gilbert said in a statement. she used the phrase.

Emphasizing that this discovery is an exciting advance to follow the TOI 700 system more closely, Gilbert said that the recently discovered "TOI 700 e" exoplanet is about 10 percent smaller than the previous discovery "TOI 700 d" and increasingly smaller with TESS observations. He pointed out that it also helped to find worlds. TOI 700 d completes its orbit in 37 days.

Experts had previously detected three exoplanets called "TOI 700 b, c and d" in the system named "TOI 700".

Planet TOI 700 d also orbits in the habitable zone. But it only took an additional year of TESS observations for scientists to discover the TOI 700 e.

Ben Hord, a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park, said: "If the star were a little closer or the planet was a little larger, we could detect TOI 700 e in the first year of the TESS data. But the signal was so weak that we needed a time to detect it. "We needed another year of transitional observations," he said.

PROPERTIES OF THE PLANETS IN THE TOI 700 SYSTEM

The characteristics of the planets of the TOI 700 system, first discovered by the TESS mission to have three planets around it and now known to have at least four planets, are:

• TOI 700 b: has an orbital period of 10 days and a size of 91.4% of the Earth,
• TOI 700 c has an orbital period of 16 days and a size of 2.6 times the Earth,
• TOI 700 e, a new planet with a 28-day period and 95% of Earth's size,
• TOI 700 d, planet with a period of 37 days and 105% the size of Earth

The new findings of TESS were shared with researchers at the 241st annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society, held in Seattle, Washington, USA.

THE EXTERNAL PLANET HUNTER TESS

The TESS satellite, which contains 4 large camera equipment, each of which observes a quarter of the space in the direction it is looking for 27 days without interruption, is trying to detect exoplanets in a position called "transition".

"Transition" describes the moment when an exoplanet passes in front of an orbiting star.

By observing the decrease in the brightness of the star reflected in the cameras at this moment, scientists can determine the mass, density and atmospheric composition of the planets in question by measuring the emission and absorption of light.

 

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Photo Source: NASA