Jakarta, CNNI Indonesia —
A extrasurya planet the so-called “Second Earth” was discovered by experts from the US Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). What does it look like?
Citing the official site NASA, the planet is called TOI 700 e and was discovered via the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Since launching in April 2018, TESS has found 285 confirmed exoplanets and more than 6,000 other candidates.
TOI 700e is one of hundreds of such planets. It is 95 percent the size of Earth and is in its star’s habitable zone.
The habitable zone is a term used by experts to label exoplanets that are at a safe distance from their star. This safe distance takes into account the presence of water on the surface throughout the history of the planet.
“We saw this for the first time and thought, is this real?” said astronomer Emily Gilbert of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
“I’m very excited,” he added.
TOI 700 and orbits a red dwarf that experts call TOI 700. TOI itself stands for TESS Object of Interest, which is located 100 light years from Earth.
This planet is known to be relatively calm with no sudden activity that could destroy the life around it. “In two full years of data that we have from TESS, we haven’t seen any optical flares,” Gilbert said.
Initially, experts found three planets in the TOI 700 orbital system, namely TOI 7000 b, c and d. TOI 700 d is also in the habitable zone, but experts need one more year of data to find TOI 700 e.
“This is just one of the few systems with many small habitable planets that we know of,” Gilbert said.
“This makes the TOI 700 system an interesting prospect for follow-up. Planet e is about 10 percent smaller than planet d. So this system also shows that TESS is helping us find even smaller worlds,” he added. .
TOI 700 d was discovered in 2020 and takes 37 days to orbit its star. The exoplanet is 20 percent larger than Earth.
Meanwhile, TOI 700 b is 90 percent the size of Earth and orbits every 10 days. Additionally, TOI 700c is 2.5 times the size of Earth and orbits every 16 days.
Planets in the TOI system are tidally locked. That is, these planets rotate only once in one orbit.
Consequently, one side of these planets always faces the star. This is similar to the side of the Moon that always faces Earth.
Throw Space, TESS will be taking another look at the TOI 700 system in a week. Data for a period of nine months or more should be owned next year.
Experts have also brought “reinforcements” for TESS, namely the Very Large Telescope in Chile. The telescope uses an instrument called ESPRESSO (Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations).
The instrument is designed to characterize Earth-like exoplanets. Experts hope that observations via ESPRESSO could determine the masses of the four planets in the TOI 700 system.
Not only that, the experts will also use the Hubble telescope to estimate the ultraviolet emission of TOI 700. This is useful for gaining insight into the climate patterns that exist on these planets.
The experts didn’t use the much more sophisticated James Webb telescope. The reason is that this capability does not match the TOI 700 d and e. However, James Webb can be used to study the larger TOI 700 b.
(lth/arh)
