The US space agency (NASA) has discovered a habitable Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting a star about 100 million light-years from Earth.
NASA said in a statement on Wednesday that the Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) discovered an Earth-sized planet located in the “habitable zone” in the constellation Dolphin (Dorado).
According to the statement, this exoplanet called “TOI 700e” is located at a distance from its orbiting star, which allows water to exist on the surface of the planet.
“This is one of the few systems that we know of that includes multiple, small, habitable planets,” NASA researcher Emily Gilbert said in the statement.
Gilbert emphasized that this discovery is an exciting advance to follow the TOI 700 system closely.
She added that the recently discovered planet “TOI 700 e” is about 10% smaller than the previous discovery, “TOI 700 d”.
She noted that the observations of the TESS mission are also helping to find increasingly smaller worlds.
Astronomers had previously discovered three planets called “TOI 700 b, c and d” in the system called “TOI 700”.
TRT Arabic – Agencies