NASA's TESS satellite uncovers first nearby super-Earth
NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a mission designed to comb the heavens for exoplanets, has discovered its first potentially habitable world outside the solar system, according to a NASA release on Wednesday.
World TESS satellite
In February, TESS cameras caught the star dimming slightly every 3.9 days, revealing the presence of a transiting exoplanet a world beyond the solar system that passes across the face of its star during every orbit and briefly dims the star's light.
In a new paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team led by Lisa Kaltenegger, associate professor of astronomy and director of Cornell's Carl Sagan Institute, models the conditions under which the planet discovered in early 2019 could sustain life.
"This is exciting, as this is humanity's first nearby super-Earth that could harbor life uncovered with help from TESS, our small, mighty mission with a huge reach," said Kaltenegger.
As this super-Earth exoplanet is more massive than earth, Kaltenegger said this discovery will provide insight into Earth's heavyweight planetary cousins. ■
