NASA's TESS discovers 'Hot Saturn' 60 times bigger than Earth

Astronomers have discovered a new exoplanet which is said to be 60 times bigger than our planet. The five-billion-year-old planet was discovered using NASA's exoplanet-hunting space telescope, TESS.

The exoplanet, dubbed TOI-197.0 or "hot Saturn" thanks to its size and hot temperature. The researchers at Aarhus University, Denmark say that this is "one of the best-described exoplanets of this type to date."

The gas giant orbits much closer to its host star compared to the distance between Saturn and the Sun. This also explains the 14 day year on the newly discovered exoplanet. The research also suggests that the "hot Saturn" has only 1/13 of Earth's density and is 60 times the mass of our planet.

The asteroseismologists - stellar astronomer who specializes in studying seismic waves, said it's rare to gather such precise information about a far-away planet. The clear seismic waves around the star allow the researchers to determine factors such as age, mass, and size.

By studying the data sent by TESS, scientists are gaining valuable insights into other solar systems. "This is the first bucketful of water from the fire hose of data we're getting from TESS," said Steve Kawaler, an Iowa State University professor and co-author of the study.

Besides, astronomers recently studied that two newly found exoplanets have similar sizes but very different densities and might give insights on how worlds are formed. Dubbed Kepler-107b and Kepler-107c have similar radii of 1.5 and 1.6 Earth radii, but they are twice our planet's density.