WASHINGTON (AFP) .- NASA announced that through its TESS satellite it had allowed to discover a planet of similar size to Earth at an intermediate distance from its star, which would allow the presence of liquid water.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA during the winter conference of the American Astronomy Society in Honolulu, Hawaii. “data-reactid =” 19 “> The planet, called” TOI 700 d “, is relatively close to Earth – only 100 light years away -, He said Jet Propulsion Laboratory from NASA during the winter conference of the American Astronomy Society in Honolulu, Hawaii.
“TESS was designed and launched specifically to find planets the size of the Earth and orbiting nearby stars,” said Paul Hertz, director of astrophysics at NASA.
Initially, the satellite misclassified the star, which implied that the planets appeared larger and hotter than they really were. But several amateur astronomers identified the error.
“When we corrected the parameters of the star, the sizes of its planets were reduced and we realized that the outermost one was about the size of the Earth and [estaba] in the habitable zone, “said Emily Gilbert, a graduate student at the University of Chicago.
Scientists used @NASAspitzer to confirm the discoveries and to model the potential environments for TOI 700 d. The planets’ star is a small, cool M dwarf just over 100 light-years[R][R] away in the constellation Dorado. pic.twitter.com/WxQdqF5Ayk& – NASA Exoplanets (@NASAExoplanets) January 7, 2020
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The discovery is the first of TESS, NASA’s planet hunter satellite launched in 2018. It was later confirmed by the Spitzer space telescope.
The TOI 700 star is small, 40% the size of the Sun and half cooler.
TESS discovered three planets in orbit, called TOI 700 b, c and d. Only “d” is in the so-called habitable zone, neither so far nor so close to the star, where temperatures could allow the presence of liquid water. It has a mass of just 40% of that of the sun and half its temperature on the surface.
It is about 20% larger than Earth and orbits around its star in 37 days. Receive 86% of the energy that the Earth receives from the Sun.
A face of the planet always faces its star, as is the case with Earth and the Moon, a phenomenon called synchronous rotation.
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