NASA Has Found Three New Earth-Like 'Exoplanets' With A High Chance Of Life On It

Whenever we think of space, a part of our mind is curious to find other life forms and planets across the galaxy. Whether it is new planets, stars or even asteroids, any discovery in the dark-merciless space is an interesting one. And to look out for more planets in our universe, NASA sent its Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS in April 2018 from Cape Canaveral.

On its journey, it has spotted various planets and there are still many more left to discover. Now TESS is halfway through our solar system and it has spotted three new worlds just 73 light-years from the southern constellation Pictor. The system goes by the moniker TOI (TESS Object of Interest) -270.

Scott Wiessinger/NASA

According to the study posted in journal Nature Astronomy, One planet among the trio is a rocky "super-Earth" which is slightly bigger than our home, whereas the other two planets are "sub-Neptunes" which are about half the size of Neptune in our solar system.

The sub-Neptunes are specifically an interesting subject as they could hold a missing link between rocky worlds like Earth and icy planets like Neptune. Studying them could give us an idea of the way these planets evolve and the path they follow and the significant changes along the way.

Even though the three planets aren't possessing a habitable climate for human-life to thrive in, TESS is still on a lookout for more human-friendly planets across the galaxy.

The study also states that TOI-270 is rather inactive for a red-dwarf star. Usually, these stars are seen exuding powerful flares more frequently, especially when they're new. However, the inactive state of the star indicates that it's rather older. The brightness of the star could help researchers deduce the mass atmospheric composition, along with other key characteristics of the planets in the system. These planets orbit the star every 3.4, 5.7 and 11.4 Earth days, respectively.

Representative Image: Reuters

Study's lead author Maximilian G¨¹nther, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, sheds light on the potential of TESS stating You can really do all the things you want to do in exoplanet science with this system."

He further adds, "TOI-270 is a true Disneyland for exoplanet science, and one of the prime systems TESS was set out to discover," G¨¹nther said. "It is an exceptional laboratory for not one, but many reasons - it really ticks all the boxes."

TESS is the successor to the popular Kepler Space Telescope, that used similar tech (transit method) to find out planets in our solar system. Kepler was responsible to find out over 4000 planets (suggesting that there is at least one planet for each star) until it retired in November 2018.