NASA's planet-hunting probe might have found another Earth

NASA's TESS has found a potential exoplanet.

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NASA's planet-hunting probe TESS, previously sent back its first science image, which captures a star's wealth and other cosmic objects in the southern sky. The images were taken using the probe's four wide-field cameras during a 30-minute period on August 7.

 
NASA's planet-hunting probe might have found another Earth

Now, the team has turned up a potential relocation candidate on the first pass with a new satellite. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) embarked on a two-year journey to scan the southern and northern skies. During the time, the probe will study an unprecedented 85 percent of the sky, which is 350 times more than the company's Kepler mission.

 

The satellite observes will observe an area of the sky for 27 days before it moves to another sector. It watches for drops or dips in a star's brightness in successive images. A dip in the brightness indicates that something is passing in front of the star, which could be an exoplanet or a super exoplanet.

Exoplanet means a planet with roughly same density as our Earth that orbits around a star other than the Sun's solar system. A super-exoplanet could a larger version of the Earth, with greater, but not more than 10 times the size of our planet's density. This alone doesn't end the search. Discovering a new exoplanet is the first step for a more complete study.

NASA announced the discovery on Twitter: "The @NASA_TESS team is excited to announce the mission's first candidate planet - a super-Earth around the bright star Pi Mensae, nearly 60 light-years away. The planet orbits every 6.3 days. The discovery is now being reviewed by other scientists to validate it. Stay tuned!"

At under 60 light-years, the new find is closer to Earth than the Kepler Mission's 2015 discovery which was 1,400 light-years away. The new exoplanet, called Pi Mensae c, is about 2.14 times Earth's radius and 4.82 times Earth's density, reports Gizmodo. NASA will be studying the Pi Mensae c, while TESS continues its search for additional exoplanets.

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