Less than two twelvemonth after starting its mission , NASA ’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite , or TESS , has found what may be its first inhabitable planet , CNNreports .
The organic structure orbit the cool M - gnome star TOI 700 in the Dorado configuration 100 abstemious - year out from Earth . concord toNASA , the planet , dubbed TOI 700 d , is about 20 percent big than our own and it sits at just the right distance from its sun to keep going liquid weewee . It ’s one of three planets in the solar organisation , the others probably being an worldly concern - sized rocky planet and a gas major planet 2.6 time the sizing of Earth . TOI 700 ergocalciferol is believed to be tidally locked , have in mind only one half confront the sunshine at all times , and orb there last approximately 37 Earth twenty-four hours .
NASA launch TESS inApril 2018with the goal of discovering planets outside our solar system , including those with the potential to host life story . The orbiter was built to locate Earth - sized planets revolve neighboring star , but this recent discovery almost went undetected . The headliner TOI 700 was initially intend to be as hot as our own sun , which would have made TOI 700 cholecalciferol uninhabitable . Upon snug review , researchers noticed the genius was actually comparatively cool and little , potentially station TOI 700 five hundred in the Goldilocks zone for nurturing life .
After TESS ’s finding was confirmed using the infrared technology of NASA ’s Spitzer Space Telescope , researchers further studied the major planet by modeling its likely atmosphere and surface conditions . These computer models can give astronomers an estimation of just how hospitable TOI 700 viosterol is before future missions , such as NASA ’s James Webb Space Telescope launching in 2021 , can collect more grounds .
TOI 700 d may be one of the nearest known habitable planets to Earth , but that does n’t mean humans will be visit it anytime presently . To put the 100 clear - year distance into perspective , Mars is less than half a light - yr off from Earth , and it can takeseven monthsto get there .
[ h / tCNN ]
