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Nasa says newly discovered ‘weird’ planet with ‘unknown’ atmosphere is remarkably similar to Earth
2 hours ago
A ‘weird’ planet recently discovered has excited scientists in their hunt for extraterrestial life.
Researchers from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of New Mexico discovered exoplanet TOI-1231 b orbiting an M dwarf star – otherwise known as a red dwarf.
Scientists were able to characterise that star, and measure both the radius and the mass of TOI-1231 b. This then gave them the necessary data to calculate density, and hypothesise what the atmosphere is made of.
The planet, a temperate sub-Neptune sized body with a 24-day orbit, is eight times closer to its star than the Earth is to the sun, but its temperature is similar to our home planet because the red dwarf itself is less potent.
An international group of collaborators, including scientists from NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and The University of New Mexico, have discovered a new, temperate sub-Neptune sized exoplanet with a 24-day orbital period orbiting a nearby M dwarf star. The recent discovery offers exciting research opportunities thanks to the planet s substantial atmosphere, small star, and how fast the system is moving away from the Earth.
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A Temperate, Neptune-Sized Planet Discovered
An international group of collaborators, including scientists from NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and The University of New Mexico, have discovered a new, temperate sub-Neptune sized exoplanet with a 24-day orbital period orbiting a nearby M dwarf star. The recent discovery offers exciting research opportunities thanks to the planet s substantial atmosphere, small star, and how fast the system is moving away from the Earth.
An artist s impression shows an exoplanet orbiting the Sun-like star.
Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
The research, titled TOI-1231 b: A Temperate, Neptune-Sized Planet Transiting the Nearby M3 Dwarf NLTT 24399, will be published in a future issue of The Astronomical Journal. The exoplanet, TOI-1231 b, was detected using photometric data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and followed up with observations using the Planet Finder Spectrograph (PFS) on the Magellan