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Agence France-Presse

Nasa’s planet hunter satellite TESS has discovered an Earth-sized world within the habitable range of its star, which could allow the presence of liquid water.
Another first for the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite is its discovery of a world orbiting two stars, evoking the planet Tatooine from Star Wars but unlikely to be hospitable to life as we know it.
The potentially habitable planet, named “TOI 700 d”, is relatively close to Earth – only 100 light years away, Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced during the winter American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Monday.
Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth, is just over four light years away.

“TESS was designed and launched specifically to find Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby stars,” said Paul Hertz, Nasa astrophysics division director.
A few other similar planets have been discovered before, notably by the Kepler Space Telescope, but this is the first discovered by TESS, which was launched in 2018. The discovery was later confirmed by the Spitzer Space Telescope.
TESS stabilises on one area of the sky to detect whether objects – planets – pass in front of stars, which causes a temporary drop in the stars’ luminosity. This allows TESS to infer the presence of a planet, its size and orbit.
Star TOI 700 is small, about 40 per cent of our sun’s size and only about half as hot. TESS discovered three planets in orbit, named TOI 700 b, c and d. Only “d” is in the so-called “Goldilocks zone,” not too far from and not too close to the star, where the temperature could allow the presence of liquid water.
The comet that could hold the secrets of the cosmos
TOI 700 d is about 20 per cent larger than Earth and orbits its star in 37 days. It receives 86 per cent of the energy that Earth receives from the Sun.
It remains to be seen what d is made of. Researchers have generated models based on the size and type of star to predict d’s atmospheric composition and surface temperature.
In one simulation, Nasa explained, the planet is covered in oceans with a “dense, carbon-dioxide-dominated atmosphere similar to what scientists suspect surrounded Mars when it was young”.
The planet is tidally locked to TOI 700, meaning that one side always faces the star, in the same way that Earthlings never see the “dark side” of the moon.


 
Another discovery announced at the meeting was TESS’s first finding of an exoplanet orbiting two stars instead of one, also known as a circumbinary planet.
The announcement prompted comparisons with Luke Skywalker’s home world of Tatooine in the Star Wars movie series, with its bewitching double sunsets.
But the newly found planet’s size alone – it is 6.9 times larger than Earth, almost the size of Saturn – makes it unlikely to be liveable.
Named TOI 1338 b, it is the only planet in the TOI 1338 system, which lies 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Pictor, and orbits its stars every 95 days.
Surviving close encounter with sun, Nasa probe sends home surprise findings
The two stars orbit each other every 15 days. One is about 10 per cent bigger than our sun, while the other is cooler, dimmer and only one-third the sun’s mass.
TOI 1338 b was identified by Wolf Cukier, a high school student who had an internship with Nasa last summer.
The system had been flagged as an eclipsing binary, where two stars circle around each other and eclipse each other from our point of view. But after going over the data, Cukier realised that a planet was present too.
Circumbinaries are difficult to detect, and scientists have now confirmed about two dozen, with the first discovered in 1993.


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Space

Nasa planet hunter finds potentially habitable Earth-sized world just 100 light years away

An artist's impression of TOI 700 d, the first Earth-size planet in its star's habitable zone to be discovered by Nasa's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Image: Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Centre via EPA-EFE

This NASA artist's illustration image obtained January 7, 2020 shows what researchers working with data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered in the mission's first circumbinary planet, a world orbiting two stars,the discovery was featured in a panel discussion on January 6,2020 at the 235th American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu. - The planet, called TOI 1338 b, is around 6.9 times larger than Earth, or between the sizes of Neptune and Saturn. It lies in a system 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Pictor. The stars in the system make an eclipsing binary, which occurs when the stellar companions circle each other in our plane of view. One is about 10% more massive than our Sun, while the other is cooler, dimmer and only one-third the Sun's mass. TOI 1338 b's transits are irregular, between every 93 and 95 days, and vary in depth and duration thanks to the orbital motion of its stars. TESS only sees the transits crossing the larger

China aims to search for exoplanets that may be habitable for humans

A scene from The Wandering Earth, a 2019 Chinese sci-fi film set in a fictional future in which the global government decides to propel Earth out of the solar system. (Picture: China Film Group Corporation)

Astronomers discover potentially habitable planet 31 light years from Earth

A diagram showing the layout of the GJ 357 system. Image: Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre/Chris Smith

An artist illustration of what GJ 357 d may look like.

Scientists puzzled by really big planet orbiting really little star

An artist’s impression of the gas giant planet GJ 3512b orbiting its red dwarf host star, released on Thursday. Image: Guillem Anglada-Escude via Reuters

This image provided by Guillem Anglada-Escude shows a comparison of orbits of the red dwarf star GJ 3512 and its newly identified gas giant planet GJ 5312b, center, to the Earth's solar system and other nearby red-dwarf planetary systems. On Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019, astronomers reported theyâve found the Jupiter-like planet orbiting a star thatâs a mere 12% the mass of our sun. There may even be another big gas planet lurking in the GJ 3512 system 31 light-years away.  (Guillem Anglada-Escude/IEEC, SpaceEngine.org via AP)

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‘TOI 700 d’ is at distance from its star that could allow presence of liquid water
Satellite also spotted planet orbiting two stars, like Tatooine from Star Wars movies



‘TOI 700 d’ is just 100 light years away, and is at distance from star that could allow presence of liquid water.


Technology

Star Wars

Nasa planet hunter finds potentially habitable Earth-sized world just 100 light years away

‘TOI 700 d’ is at distance from its star that could allow presence of liquid water Satellite also spotted planet orbiting two stars, like Tatooine from Star Wars movies

‘TOI 700 d’ is at distance from its star that could allow presence of liquid water

Satellite also spotted planet orbiting two stars, like Tatooine from Star Wars movies