NASA’s Planet Hunter TESS Discovers First Earth-Sized Planet In Habitable Zone

TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), which is also referred to as the planet hunter, discovers the first earth-sized planet in a habitable zone.

Scientists from NASA confirmed the discovery by using the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is owned by them.

The earth-sized planet has been named as TOI 700 d.

TOI 700 d is one of only a number of earth-sized planets that have been discovered in a star’s habitable zone.

The habitable zone is what NASA defines as “the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water on the surface.”

Paul Hertz, the director of the astrophysics division at NASA in Washington, released a statement about the discovery.

Paul said, “TESS was designed and launched specifically to find Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby stars. Planets around nearby stars are easiest to follow-up with larger telescopes in space and on Earth.”

He added, “Discovering TOI 700 d is a key science finding for TESS.”

TESS found TOI 700 d, a new potentially habitable exoplanet the size of Earth, located about 100 light-years away.

According to NASA, TOI 700 is a small cool M dwarf star that is located around 100 light-years away in the southern constellation Dorado.

TOI 700 d is believed to be a rocky planet with water.

The planet orbits its sun every 10 days.

Talking about the new discovery, NASA said, “All of the planets are thought to be tidally locked to their star, which means they rotate once per orbit so that one side is constantly bathed in daylight.”

At first, the start was misclassified in the database of TESS as it was more similar to our sun.

But later, an error was identified and a team of scientists requested a follow-up observation with the Spitzer telescope.

They also sharpened their measurements by 56 percent and its size by 38 percent.

How Did We Find The Planet

TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) is a satellite that finds exo-planets by using its tried-and-true technique when objects are transiting in front of their host stars. TESS and Spitzer Space Telescope were both used to find the planet, achieving its measurements and how it orbits the sun.

What is Tess

TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) is NASA’s new planet-hunting space telescope. The satellite is the successor of the Kepler Space Telescope, which found around 2600 exoplanets. TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) is capable of surveying 85 percent of the night sky, which is 400 times more than what Kepler could monitor.

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