Launched by NASA, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, better known as TESS, has been tracking exoplanets in space for a little over a year now. He discovered three new stars a few days ago. These planets are 73 light-years from Earth.
This system of three exoplanets is located in the constellation Peintre, in the southern hemisphere, and consists of two small planets, called mini-Neptune, as well as a super-rocky Earth. They all revolve around three TOI-270, a Type M dwarf star. One more discovery for TESS, which has shown its effectiveness recently.
Three new exoplanets
TOI 270 b is the smallest of these three planets that gravitate out of our solar system and is also closest to its star. It thus puts only three to four earthy days to go around. This proximity explains its extremely high temperature of 254 ° Celsius which makes it the hottest exoplanet among these three stars just discovered.
The super-Earth that was first observed on July 29 would be composed of rocks and its size would exceed that of the blue planet by about 25%. A priori, there is no chance for any form of life to develop.
The other two planets are enveloped in a thick gaseous layer. They are farther from their star and are each more than twice the surface of the Earth: 2.4 times more for YOU 270 C and 2.1 times for TOI 270 D. They sail around their star every 5.7 land days for the first and every 11.4 days for the second.
Although their temperature is much lower than that of the super-Earth, they remain hot planets. The more remote of the three would be around 67 ° C, which is high but does not seem totally incompatible with the possible presence of a, particularly resistant life form.
An exemplary system
The TESS satellite, launched by NASA on April 2018, is studying a particularly interesting system for analyzing how planets evolve over time. The position of the TOI 270 in space is indeed perfectly adapted to the observations. The system should, therefore, be scanned for at least six months by James Webb, the ultra-powerful telescope that is scheduled for launch in 2021.
Thanks to all the information that will be gathered during this new project, the scientific community expects capital discoveries that, put in perspective, will allow researchers to progress rapidly on the understanding of our own solar system.
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