An international team of researchers has discovered two new super-Earth-like planets using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). They think that one of the planets they found is livable. These planets are heavier than frigid planets like Uranus and Neptune, yet bigger than Earth. A statement from the University of Liège in Belgium confirmed it.
Super-Earth Planets
According to NPR, the ULiège researchers utilized their SPECULOOS (Search for livable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) telescopes in Chile and Spain to take a closer look at the planet with high-precision cameras after the two planets were discovered by NASA's satellite. The planets were named LP 890-9b and LP 890-9c.
LP 890-9b orbits its Sun in just 2.7 days and is about 30% larger than Earth. On the other hand, the LP 890-9c orbits its Sun in 8.5 days. LP 890-9c is 40% larger than Earth and was renamed SPECULOOS-2c by ULiège researchers.
Habitable Speculoos-2c
In a press release, Francisco Pozuelos, a scientist from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia and one of the paper's primary authors, suggested that the planet might be habitable despite being only 3.7 million miles from its sun. In contrast, Earth is more than 93 million kilometers from the sun.
Although this planet orbits its star very closely, at a distance roughly ten times closer than Mercury orbits our Sun, Pozuelo claimed that the amount of stellar irradiation it receives is still relatively low. It might permit the presence of liquid water on the planet's surface if it has a strong enough atmosphere. It is because the star LP 890-9 has a surface temperature that is half that of the Sun and is approximately 6.5 times smaller than our star.
Super-Earth Discovery Tools
TESS uses the transit method to find exoplanets by simultaneously observing the brightness of thousands of stars and searching for minute dimmings that could be caused by planets transiting in front of their stars, according to Laetitia Delrez, the lead author of the article and an FNRS Postdoctoral Researcher in the ULiège Astrobiology and STAR (Faculty of Sciences) research units.
To validate the planetary nature of the identified candidates and improve the measurements of their sizes and orbital characteristics, a follow-up with ground-based telescopes is frequently required. This follow-up is especially crucial for icy cold stars like LP 890-9 since they release most of their light in the near-infrared, a wavelength for which TESS has relatively poor sensitivity.
On the other hand, the SPECULOOS telescopes, led by ULiège and installed at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife (SPECULOOS North) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Paranal, Chile, respectively, are optimized to observe this type of star with high precision. These cameras are also highly sensitive in the near-infrared.
The aim of the SPECULOOS project, according to Michal Gillon, FNRS Senior Research Associate, co-director of the ULiège Astrobiology research unit, and principal investigator, is to look for potentially livable terrestrial planets transiting the smallest and coolest stars in the vicinity of the sun. One such is the planetary system TRAPPIST-1, which was found in 2016 as a result of a trial study with our TRAPPIST-South telescope.
This tactic is driven by the fact that such planets are especially well adapted for in-depth atmospheric research and the hunt for possible chemical signs of life using powerful observatories like the JWST.
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