New super-Earth in the ‘habitable zone’ 137 light years away

A super-Earth has been discovered orbiting in the ‘habitable zone’ of a red dwarf star 137 light years away. The system may also host another Earth-sized planet.

Called TOI-715b, the super-Earth is about one and a half times as wide as Earth and orbits at a distance from the star that could give the planet the right temperature to form liquid water on its surface. The smallest planet may be slightly larger than Earth and may still lie just inside the habitable zone.

The discovery was made possible thanks to data from NASA’s TESS exoplanet hunter, which were analyzed by scientists led by Georgina Dransfield of the University of Birmingham, who published the results in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

According to NASA, TOI-715 b may appear at the right time. Its parent star is a red dwarf, smaller and cooler than our Sun; Many of these stars are known to host small rocky worlds. At the moment, they are the best option for finding habitable planets. The orbits of these planets are much closer than those of nearby stars like our Sun, but because red dwarfs are small and cool, the planets can be clustered close to each other and still be within the star’s habitable zone. Can live safely.

Narrower orbits also mean that those that cross the faces of their stars (that is, when viewed from our space telescopes) intersect more often. In the case of Planet B, this happens once every 19 days, a “year” on this strange world. Therefore, these star-crossing (“transit”) planets can be more easily detected and observed more frequently.

The planet TOI-175 b joins the list of habitable zone planets that can be examined more closely by the Webb telescope, perhaps even for signs of an atmosphere. Much will depend on the planet’s other properties, including its mass and whether it can be classified as a “water world”, making its atmosphere, if present, more prominent than that of a more massive and dense planet. It will be much less difficult to detect in comparison. , Being drier, it will likely keep its low-profile atmosphere closer to the surface, NASA said in a statement.

If a possible second Earth-sized planet in the system is also confirmed, it would become the smallest planet in the habitable zone yet discovered by TESS. The discovery exceeded TESS’s initial expectations by discovering an Earth-sized world in the habitable zone.