NASA Finds Super-Earth Planet Just Around the Corner

Bright Side

NASA recently discovered an exciting new planet called a "Super-Earth," and it’s not too far from us in space terms! This planet is bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, and scientists think it might even have water on it, which is super important for life. It’s located in a nearby star system, just 37 light-years away, making it one of the closest planets of its kind. What's cool is that it orbits its star in the "habitable zone," where temperatures could allow liquid water to exist. Scientists are really curious about what the planet's atmosphere might be like and whether it could possibly support life. This find gets us one step closer to exploring planets beyond our solar system!

Transcript

00:00A new super-Earth has been spotted by astronomers, and it's quite intriguing.

00:05This planet, called TOI-715b, is about one and a half the size of Earth,

00:11which is why it's called the super-Earth.

00:13It's also relatively close to us in space terms, only 137 light-years away.

00:19For comparison, most exoplanets are hundreds of light-years away.

00:24And all the interesting stuff, like black holes and nebulas,

00:27are usually more than thousands of light-years away from us.

00:30So, could it be habitable?

00:34The habitable zone is an estimate of where a planet might have the right conditions for liquid water.

00:41This is what we call some distance from the star,

00:43where the temperatures on the planet should be okay-ish,

00:47and water should stay liquid on its surface.

00:49It's not super precise, because it depends on a bunch of factors,

00:53like the type of star, how reflective the planet is, its size, and so on.

00:59Also, just being in this zone isn't enough for water to actually be there.

01:03The planet also needs the right kind of atmosphere, and a few other things.

01:08So, we invented a stricter definition in 2014, the conservative habitable zone.

01:14It's a more precise term defining the best candidates that have liquid water.

01:18Otherwise, we get too many potentially habitable planets that are not actually habitable at all.

01:25The CHZ is based on how much energy a planet gets from its star compared to Earth.

01:31If a rocky planet gets between 40 to 85%,

01:35it's considered to be in the CHZ, no matter how far away it is from its star.

01:40These planets have a higher chance of being habitable.

01:43And yes, TOI-715b is located there.

01:51This super-Earth orbits the M-type star, also called Red Dwarf.

01:56It's a star that's much smaller and cooler than our Sun, about a quarter of the Sun's size and mass.

02:02But if the planet is located in the habitable zone, it's actually a better option for life.

02:08Red Dwarfs live much longer than our Sun, a yellow dwarf.

02:11This also means that they have more time to form little creatures on their planets.

02:16And this red dwarf really is older than our star.

02:19Our Sun is 4.6 billion years old, and this star is 6.6 billion years old, give or take a few hundred million.

02:28It doesn't have much magnetic activity, so it's not dangerous.

02:32It doesn't flare up like younger red dwarfs.

02:35These flares can be super strong and might even hurt planets by taking away their atmospheres.

02:39Although some planets around it do have thinner atmospheres, it seems like this red dwarf has already gone all out.

02:48These red dwarfs are where we're looking for planets that could support life right now.

02:53Our super-Earth is really close to its star, zooming around it in just 19 days.

02:58Since the star is small and the planet is so close, the planet passing in front of its star happens a lot and looks really clear.

03:07This makes it easy for telescopes like the James Webb to study its atmosphere without needing too much time.

03:13Now, speaking of the James Webb Space Telescope, it's bringing us into a new era of understanding distant planets beyond our solar system.

03:23Imagine being able to see what gases make up the air on a planet millions of light-years away.

03:29James Webb will help us to find worlds that could support life.

03:33Right now, it's trying to figure out whether TOI-715b has an atmosphere.

03:39If it does, its atmosphere might be easier to spot compared to a planet that's drier and denser.

03:45And then, we might get even more height because it would look like a good place for life.

03:51On top of all that, there might be another planet in this system, also in the habitable zone.

03:56We're not sure whether it's really there, it's just a candidate with a crazy name.

04:02But if it turns out to be real, it would be about the size of Earth.

04:06Also, it would be the smallest planet in the habitable zone ever spotted by the TESS telescope.

04:13Now, another cool thing about TOI-715b is that it cannot just have water on it, but be an entire water world.

04:22An ocean planet is a type of planet that has an ocean covering its surface or has subsurface oceans.

04:29They might not have much dry land because the water can cover everything.

04:33Sometimes, the entire planet can be covered in other liquids, like lava or ammonia.

04:38When it comes to planets outside our solar system, we can't see surface water directly with our current technology.

04:45Instead, scientists look for water vapor in the atmosphere as a hint there might be liquid water below.

04:51And, of course, we wonder if these planets can have life, hopefully not in the form of leviathan-like monsters.

04:59Our models show that planets with oceans might be pretty common in our galaxy.

05:04This means there could be lots of ocean worlds out there waiting to be discovered.

05:08But the most important part about TOI-715b is that it's in the so-called small planet radius gap.

05:20If we give the planets a lineup, there will be those that are bigger and smaller than Earth.

05:25But there's a sudden gap in planets that are about from 1.5 to 2 times bigger than ours.

05:31Where are they?

05:32This gap is interesting to scientists because it tells us something about how planets form and change over time.

05:39It's not that planets don't form in this size range.

05:42They actually start off larger and then lose some of their mass, like a balloon gradually deflating.

05:48Perhaps it happens because of how they orbit their stars,

05:51with stars blowing away some of their mass as they dance around it, as our Sun does with gas from comet tails.

05:58This gap holds a lot of mystery.

06:01And planets, like our new super-Earth, are clues that could help us unravel it.

06:06We aren't sure whether it exists around red dwarfs.

06:09Maybe it's a gap in how dense these planets are, rather than in their actual size.

06:14So studying our discovered planet is even more interesting.

06:18It'll help us learn more about distant stars and their planets.

06:21Now, I mentioned TESS a while back.

06:25NASA's TESS, Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, has been in space for six years now and has been incredibly successful.

06:34NASA launched TESS because we already found over 5,000 planets orbiting other stars, mainly thanks to the Kepler telescope.

06:43But Kepler mostly found large planets, not necessarily like Earth.

06:47We decided to focus TESS on finding smaller Earth-like planets around nearby bright stars, making them easier to study with future telescopes.

06:59Here's how it works.

07:00The camera observes stars and looks for changes in their brightness.

07:04If the brightness suddenly drops for a while and then gets back, it could mean there is a planet passing in front of it.

07:11But stars can dim for other reasons, too.

07:13For example, flaring up or having dark spots on their surface, which is why we need to be careful with this data.

07:21TESS shows us the size and orbit of these planets.

07:24Then, ground telescopes help determine their mass.

07:28With these three parameters, we can figure out what the planets are made of and if they're rocky like Earth or gassy like Jupiter.

07:35Yeah, you want to avoid Jupiter after taco night.

07:38One example of TESS's discoveries was the TOI-700 system.

07:46There, it discovered its first-ever Earth-like planet, TOI-700d.

07:51This exoplanet also orbited a red dwarf, and it's even closer to us, about 100 light-years away.

07:58Unfortunately, it's unlikely to be habitable because the temperatures there are crazy.

08:03Another big discovery was made in the AU microscopy system.

08:08TESS discovered a planet about four times the size of Earth and another, nearly three times Earth's size.

08:15This system has become a key area for studying how stars and planets form and change over time.

08:21TESS has also spotted a variety of other exciting finds, including supernova, hot worlds, and so on.

08:27And as it enters its sixth year, we can only expect more exciting findings to come.

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