“NASA” Announces The Discovery Of A Planet The Size Of Earth “Habitable”
The US space agency “NASA” announced the discovery of a habitable exoplanet the size of Earth orbiting a star about 100 million light-years from Earth.
The US Space Agency (NASA) has discovered a habitable exoplanet the size of Earth, indicating that it revolves around a star about 100 million light-years away from Earth, according to what was reported by the Anadolu Agency, Wednesday, January 11, 2023, quoting “NASA”.
“NASA” said in a statement that the Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) discovered an Earth-sized planet located in the “habitable zone” of the constellation Dolphin (Dorado).
This exoplanet, called “TOI 700 e”, is located at a distance from its orbiting star, which allows water to exist on the surface of the planet, according to the Anadolu Agency.
“This is one of the few systems that we know of that includes multiple, small, habitable planets,” Emily Gilbert, a researcher at NASA, said in the statement, stressing that this discovery is an exciting progress to follow the “TOI 700” system closely.
Gilbert also noted that the newly discovered planet, TOI 700 e, is about 10 percent smaller than the previous discovery, TOI 700 d, and said that the observations of the TESS mission are also helping to find increasingly smaller worlds.
This celestial body is the fourth planet discovered by NASA in the orbit of the small dwarf star M TOI 700, according to CNN, Tuesday, January 10, 2023, noting that the planet is rocky and its size is 95% of the size of our world.
Another planet was discovered in 2020 and called TOI 700 d, also the size of Earth, and these two planets are in the habitable zone around their star, or at the appropriate distance from the star that allows the availability of liquid water on their surfaces.
The possibility of liquid water indicates that the two planets themselves may be, or ever were, habitable, according to CNN.
The satellite responsible for the “Exoplanet Survey”, known as the TESS mission, had found several planets previously, but they were not habitable and were not so close to the size of Earth except in extremely rare cases, according to the German DW website.
The TESS mission, which was launched in 2018, monitors large parts of the night sky for 27 days at a time, observing the brightest stars and following changes in their brightness, and when the brightness decreases, this means that there are planets passing in front of them as they orbit around them, according to CNN.
It is noteworthy that a search conducted by NASA for signs of life on Mars and for some promising clues so far, as it was found, after examination and analysis, that the rocks found by a NASA rover contained “organic compounds worthy of further examination and attention.” It may be associated with ancient microbes.
The two important samples were found in the “Jezero” crater, located north of the Martian equator, which is claimed to have been the site of a river delta about 3.5 billion years ago, according to the British newspaper, The Times, in its report, Monday, September 19, 2022.
Source: websites