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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Astronomers may have spotted the first <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomers-found-distant-planet-pds70-with-moon-making-disc-2021-7">planet</a> ever discovered in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/black-hole-plasma-jets-image-centaurus-galaxy-2021-7">another galaxy</a>.</li><li>They used <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-nasa-sls-moon-rocket-taller-than-statue-of-liberty-2021-10">NASA</a>'s Chandra <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/black-hole-warps-space-astronomers-see-light-behind-it-2021-8">X-ray telescope</a> to study what is either a black hole or neutron star in a distant galaxy.</li></ul><p>Astronomers have discovered what may be the first planet ever observed in another galaxy.</p><p>Until now, astronomers had only found <keyword id="11910186" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="planets" source="Orion">planets</keyword> that are beyond our solar system yet still within the Milky Way - these are called <keyword id="12393174" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="exoplanets" source="Orion">exoplanets</keyword>. But recently, researchers pointed <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword>'s Chandra X-ray space telescope towards the distant spiral galaxy Messier 51 (M51 for short). There, they saw signs that a planet is orbiting a massive object: either a black hole or the dense, collapsed core of a giant star, which is known as a neutron star.</p><p>Whereas almost all exoplanets found so far have been within 3,000 light-years of Earth, this potential planet is about 28 million light-years away. </p><p>To make the discovery, a global team of astronomers used the same technique that's often used to find exoplanets in the Milky Way. Researchers doing that work essentially look for exoplanet shadows: They watch stars for tiny dips in brightness caused when planets pass in front of them. These are known as transits.</p><p>But from millions of light-years away, visible light from hundreds of stars can blend together, making it nearly impossible to pick out planets transiting individual stars. So instead of using visible light, the team behind the new finding looked for dips in the brightness of X-rays coming from the M51 galaxy.</p><p>With X-rays, "there may be only several dozen sources spread out over the entire galaxy, so we can resolve them," Rosanne Di Stefano, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who led the research, told the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59044650">BBC</a>.</p><p>Black holes and neutron stars aren't as common as stars. They are also incredibly dense, with lots of matter packed into a relatively small space, so a transiting planet could easily block all of the X-rays they emit, whereas a planet orbiting a sun-like star blocks only a small fraction of its visible light.</p><p>Di Stefano's <a href="https://chandra.si.edu/photo/2021/m51/m51_paper.pdf">study</a> was set to publish Monday in the journal Nature <keyword id="11949140" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="astronomy" source="Orion">Astronomy</keyword>, though the paper was <a href="https://twitter.com/natureastronomy/status/1452658899643944962?s=21">delayed</a> (Nature still plans to publish it). It offers early evidence that this X-ray technique could be used to find other planets also orbiting neutron stars or black holes in other <keyword id="12393175" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="galaxies" source="Orion">galaxies</keyword>.</p><p>"We are trying to open up a whole new arena for finding other worlds by searching for planet candidates at X-ray wavelengths, a strategy that makes it possible to discover them in other galaxies," Di Stefano said in a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/images/chandra-sees-evidence-for-possible-planet-in-another-galaxy.html">press release</a>.</p><h2>X-rays gave this potential planet away</h2><div type="image" title="animation gif shows a large planet passing a swirling bright spot and temporarily blocking light" height="450" width="800" msid="87279490" hostid="261"></div><p>If this planet does exist, it probably survived a violent explosion that created the neutron star or black hole that it's orbiting. That would have washed the planet in waves of intense radiation. So this is not the kind of planet where scientists would look for alien life.</p><p>Rather, the goal was to see if it's possible to detect planets in other galaxies at all. So the researchers focused their search on what are known as "X-ray bright binaries": neutron stars or black holes that are slowly pulling gas away from a nearby star. As they pull in that material, they superheat it and produce a bright X-ray glow that would help a planet's shadow stand out.</p><p>Looking at one particular binary in M51, the researchers spotted a transit. Over a period of three hours, the binary's X-ray emissions dropped to zero, suggesting that a planet was completely blocking them.</p><p>Based on that, the researchers estimate that this new planet - if it exists - is about the size of Saturn, but orbits the neutron star or black hole at about twice the distance between Saturn and our sun.</p><p>But it could take decades to confirm that this is, indeed, a planet. To do that, astronomers will need to spot more transits, which don't happen very often when a planet is so far from its star (or, in this case, its neutron star or black hole).</p><p>"Unfortunately to confirm that we're seeing a planet we would likely have to wait decades to see another transit," Nia Imara, a study co-author and an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in the release. "And because of the uncertainties about how long it takes to orbit, we wouldn't know exactly when to look."</p>

Astronomers using a NASA space telescope spotted the first signs of a planet beyond the Milky Way

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Astronomers discovered what they believe are two alien worlds composed <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/water-vapor-on-potentially-habitable-super-earth-exoplanet-2019-9">mostly of water</a>.</li><li>Telescopes have been used to discover 5,241 <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomers-find-earth-like-planet-sun-like-star-2020-6">planets beyond our solar system</a> so far.</li></ul><p>Sitting in a star system about 218 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, two<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/james-webb-hunt-for-distant-worlds-some-may-harbor-life-2022-7"> exoplanets</a> orbit a dim, red dwarf star.</p><p>In the <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41550-022-01835-4">journal Nature Astronomy</a>, astronomers announced that the two exoplanets — Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 d — could be made up of mostly water.</p><p>But how did they figure that out, when the planets are far enough away that it would take a spaceship traveling 17,400 miles per hour more than 8 million years to reach them?</p><div type="image" title="graph of solar system and known exoplanets" height="2000" width="3556" msid="96944090" hostid="261" sizebytes="194948"></div><h2>Astronomers look for tiny dips in starlight to find far away worlds</h2><p>Most exoplanets are discovered through a technique called the <a href="https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/faq/31/whats-a-transit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">transit method</a>.</p><p>"That means Kepler, or another planet-hunting telescope, observed them a ton of times as they pass in front of their host star," Caroline Piaulet, a Ph.D. student at the University of Montreal's Institute for Research on Exoplanets and lead author of the study, told Insider.</p><div type="image" title="star transit method exoplanet detection nasa" height="905" width="2126" msid="96944091" hostid="261" sizebytes="19560"></div><p>Since the first worlds outside our solar system were <a href="https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/historic-timeline/#first-exoplanets-discovered" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discovered in 1992</a>, astronomers have searched for other planets orbiting sun-like stars.</p><p>Astronomers have already captured direct evidence of 5,241 planets beyond our solar system, according to<a href="https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/counts_detail.html"> NASA's Exoplanet Archive</a>.</p><p>To understand whether exoplanets, or planets around other stars, have the conditions to host life, researchers measure the chemical makeup of their atmospheres.</p><p>They do this by looking at graphs called a spectrum, which reveal how starlight filters through the atmosphere by dipping at very specific wavelengths that correspond to different molecules.</p><div type="image" title="Webb observed the spectra of WASP-96 b, revealing it's atmosphere has water, clouds, and haze." height="1292" width="1920" msid="96944092" hostid="261" sizebytes="65606"></div><p>Astronomers typically look for the ingredients that sustain earthly life — liquid water, a continuous source of energy, carbon, and other elements — when hunting for life in distant worlds.</p><h2>How they concluded Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 d have water</h2><p>Using data from the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/images-show-james-webb-space-telescope-stronger-sharper-than-hubble-2022-7">Hubble Space Telescope</a> and the retired <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasas-spitzer-space-telescope-is-retiring-after-16-years-2020-1">Spitzer Space Telescope,</a> Piaulet and her team conducted a follow-up study of Kepler-138 d's atmosphere.</p><p>But the new observations suggested the presence of another world orbiting the host star every 38 days: Kepler-138 e.</p><p>Taking into account the newly found exoplanet, researchers compared the sizes and masses of the planets in the star system and determined Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 d were roughly the same mass and size — about 20% larger than Earth.</p><p>The team also concluded that up to half of their volumes are likely made of materials lighter than rock.</p><div type="image" title="Illustration Earth and exoplanet Kepler-138 d" height="1076" width="1821" msid="96944093" hostid="261" sizebytes="114384"></div><p>"We were surprised that they were not consistent with being rocky in composition," Piaulet said. "They had to have some lighter elements in there. Water is a good explanation because it's the most abundant of these elements."</p><p>"We often think of the Earth as the blue planet, covered in oceans," she added. "These worlds would have much more water than Earth."</p><p>On Earth, the average depth of the oceans is 2.3 miles, according to the <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/oceandepth.html#:~:text=The%20average%20ocean%20depth%20is%203.7%20kilometers%20(2.3%20miles).&amp;text=The%20average%20depth%20of%20the,3%2C688%20meters%20(12%2C100%20feet).">National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</a>. For Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 d, the water atmosphere would be 1,243 miles deep, Piaulet added.</p><h2>Water worlds beyond our solar system could be abundant in the universe</h2><p>Worlds rich in liquid water might not be as rare as astronomers previously thought, Piaulet said.</p><p>In August 2022, <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ac7cea">another team of researchers</a> found planet TOI-1452 b that could potentially be covered in a deep ocean. Follow-up observations with the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/james-webb-team-unveils-nasa-space-telescope-first-images-2022-7">James Webb Space Telescope</a> will be needed to confirm the ocean's presence.</p><div type="image" title="Ocean worlds beyond Earth have been a key research focus for NASA's Planetary Science Division ever since the confirmation of ice-covered liquid water oceans on Jupiter's moons Europa and Ganymede and, subsequently, Saturn's moons Enceladus and Titan." height="824" width="1440" msid="96944094" hostid="261" sizebytes="229048"></div><p>But astronomers don't have to venture into the far-off reaches of the cosmos in search of ocean worlds.</p><p>There are some of them right in our own solar neighborhood, such as Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus, which <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/water-space-volume-planets-moons-2016-10">have subsurface oceans</a> beneath an ice layer.</p><p>Now that researchers have begun to find a bevy of water-rich worlds, "we don't know much about what type of life could be there," Piaulet said.</p><div type="image" title="NASA's Cassini spacecraft flying through Enceladus" height="675" width="1600" msid="96944095" hostid="261" sizebytes="15544"></div><p>One limitation in scouring the cosmos for alien life is that scientists' definition of what a life-supporting planet might look like is based on what we know about life on Earth.</p><p>But by discovering and studying new worlds, astronomers can hone in on what makes a world habitable beyond a sample size of one — Earth.</p>

How exoplanet hunters find alien worlds hundreds of light-years away and figure out if they have water

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword> unveiled the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/james-webb-team-unveils-nasa-space-telescope-first-images-2022-7">deepest, sharpest infrared image</a> of the distant universe ever captured on Tuesday. </li><li>Various estimates suggest Earth-like planets that could harbor life are abundant in the universe.</li></ul><ul class="summary-list"></ul><p>It's easy to lose yourself in the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/james-webb-team-unveils-nasa-space-telescope-first-images-2022-7">James Webb Space Telescope's</a> first image. Snail-spiral galaxies, gleaming stars, and minuscule red dots surely represent billions of unknown worlds.</p><p>"The deep field image fills me with wonder and hope," Lisa Kaltenegger, professor of astronomy at Cornell University and director of the Carl Sagan Institute, told Insider.</p><div type="image" title="james webb space telescope clean room" height="1499" width="1998" msid="92919479" hostid="261" sizebytes="452074"></div><p>Webb's image of the distant universe covers an area of the sky that you can blot out by holding a grain of sand at arm's length. Still, it contains thousands of galaxies, according to Kaltenegger, along with the possibility of billions of Earth-like planets. So far, the hunt for signs of life beyond Earth has turned up empty.</p><p>But astronomers say there are likely an abundance of places where life might thrive. Looking at Webb's pictures, it's hard to believe otherwise.</p><h1>An abundance of distant worlds</h1><h1><div type="image" title="trappist 1 seven earth size planets discovery nature 7" height="2550" width="3400" msid="92919482" hostid="261" sizebytes="462212"></div></h1><p>There are up to <a href="https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/blueshift/index.php/2015/07/22/how-many-stars-in-the-milky-way/">400 billion stars</a> teeming with planets in the Milky Way alone. We don't know for sure, but scientists have tried to calculate how many Earth-like planets are orbiting all those stars. Their estimates range from <a href="https://www.seti.org/press-release/how-many-habitable-planets-are-out-there">300 million</a> to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/10-billion-earth-like-planets-in-milky-way-galaxy-2019-8">10 billion</a> potentially habitable worlds.</p><p>Outside that, there are about <a href="https://www.space.com/25303-how-many-galaxies-are-in-the-universe.html">100 billion to 200 billion galaxies</a> in the universe, each one home to <a href="https://www.space.com/26078-how-many-stars-are-there.html">100 million stars</a>, on average, and <a href="http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast121/lectures/lec24.html">at least </a>that number of planets. </p><p>Astronomers have already captured direct evidence of 5,000 planets beyond our solar system, according to <a href="https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/counts_detail.html">NASA's Exoplanet Archive</a>. Hundreds of these worlds sit in the "Goldilocks Zone," the orbital range around a star where the temperature is just right — not too hot and not too cold — for liquid water to exist on the planet.</p><p>Observations by NASA's Kepler mission suggest that one out of every five stars has a planet orbiting it within this just-right distance, according to Kaltenegger. "I like our chances of finding other Earth-like planets, and hopefully other Earth-like planets that also host life," Kaltenegger said. </p><div type="image" title="habitable goldilocks zone earth exoplanets nasa" height="1068" width="1424" msid="92919486" hostid="261" sizebytes="61502"></div><p>The possibilities for life aren't limited to planets. Some ocean moons within our solar system are leading candidates for <keyword id="12012815" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="alien-life" source="Orion">alien life</keyword>. There's Jupiter's icy moon <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-jupiter-oceanic-moon-europa-radioactive-glow-2020-11">Europa</a>, and Saturn's moon <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ocean-saturn-moon-enceladus-building-blocks-life-amino-acids-2019-10">Enceladus</a>, which have oceans of liquid water deep beneath their ice crusts. Astronomers think there's a chance life could thrive there. Surely, there are other Europas and Enceladuses in other star systems.</p><p>Still, despite the myriad galaxies and worlds already imaged and studied, astronomers are unsure about the odds of life arising elsewhere.</p><p>"We don't know how easy or hard it is to make life — that is why the search is so exciting," Kaltenegger said, adding, "Right now, I'd say the chances are between zero and 100%, but I am hopeful it won't be zero."</p><h1>Looking for life as we know it</h1><div type="image" title="illustration of a lineup of earth-like planets stretching into space" height="2249" width="3000" msid="92919489" hostid="261" sizebytes="573646"></div><p>To understand whether exoplanets, or planets around other stars, have the conditions to host life, researchers measure the chemical makeup of their atmospheres. They do this by looking at how starlight gets filtered by the atmosphere, which dips at very specific wavelengths that correspond to different molecules.</p><p>Astronomers typically look for the ingredients that sustain earthly life — liquid water, a continuous source of energy, carbon, and other elements — when hunting for life in distant worlds. For instance, detecting <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2117933119">methane</a> in an <keyword id="14471369" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="exoplanet" source="Orion">exoplanet</keyword>'s atmosphere could be an indication of biology. According to Kaltenegger, these building blocks of life appear to be abundant in our solar system and the universe.</p><p>What's more, a potential alien astronomer looking for life beyond their planet might pick up on signs of life from Earth in a similar way. In 2021, Kaltenegger co-authored a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03596-y">study</a> that found that more than 2,000 stars, some with their own planets, have a front-row seat to look toward the Earth as it passes around our sun. "That's just within 300 light-years, in our cosmic front yard, in terms of distance," Kaltenegger said.</p><p>One limitation in scouring the cosmos for alien life is that scientists' definition of what a life-supporting planet might look like is based on what we know about life on Earth. But by discovering and studying new worlds, astronomers can hone in on what makes a world habitable beyond a sample size of one — Earth.</p><h1>Leveraging Webb's power to study other worlds</h1><div type="image" title="james webb space telescope in space above earth" height="1080" width="1920" msid="92919491" hostid="261" sizebytes="38326"></div><p>Since the first world outside our solar system was confirmed in 1995, astronomers have searched for other planets orbiting sun-like stars. Because these worlds are so far away, space-based telescopes like the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/images-show-james-webb-space-telescope-stronger-sharper-than-hubble-2022-7">Hubble Space Telescope</a> have dramatically enhanced their planet-hunting capabilities, and the <keyword id="12594489" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="james-webb-space-telescope" source="Orion">James Webb Space Telescope</keyword> makes more such discoveries almost inevitable.</p><p>Webb will allow for unprecedented views into these distant planets. "With the James Webb <keyword id="11895441" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="space" source="Orion">Space</keyword> Telescope, we can explore the chemical makeup of the atmosphere of other worlds — and if there are signs in it that we can only explain by life," Kaltenegger said. </p><p>There are <a href="https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-programs/cycle-1-go">70 planets</a> scheduled for study in Webb's first year alone. Already, Webb captured the signature of water, along with previously undetected evidence of clouds and haze, in the atmosphere of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-james-webb-space-telescope-detects-water-on-distant-planet-2022-7">WASP-96 b</a> — a giant and hot gas planet that orbits a distant star like our sun.</p><div type="image" title="Webb observed the spectra of WASP-96 b, revealing it's atmosphere has water, clouds, and haze." height="1292" width="1920" msid="92919493" hostid="261" sizebytes="65606"></div><p>"While the Hubble Space Telescope has analyzed numerous exoplanet atmospheres over the past two decades, capturing the first clear detection of water in 2013, Webb's immediate and more detailed observation marks a giant leap forward in the quest to characterize potentially habitable planets beyond Earth," <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-reveals-steamy-atmosphere-of-distant-planet-in-detail">NASA said</a>.</p><p>Kaltenegger is part of a team that will dedicate 200 hours of Webb's telescope time in its first year to study faraway places, including worlds circling Trappist-1 — a cool, dim star 40 light-years from Earth.</p><p>"It is an amazing time in our exploration of the cosmos," Kaltenegger said, adding, "Are we alone? This amazing space telescope is the first-ever tool that collects enough light for us to start figuring this fundamental question out."</p>

Images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope remind us, yet again, how improbable it is that we're alone in the universe

<br /><ul><li>Astronomers at California Planet Search have found a <keyword id="438857" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="New-Planet">new planet</keyword> that's three times the size of Jupiter in the outer reaches of the universe.</li><li>It took twenty years of observations to determine the planet's 'highly eccentric' orbit which sling-shots itself around its star.</li><li>The planet dubbed HR 5138 is the first exoplanet to exhibit such behaviour.</li></ul>The outer reaches of the universe holds many mysteries. But scientists from <a href="https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/newly-discovered-giant-planet-slingshots-around-its-star">California Planet Search</a> discovered an exotic planet which has a wonky 'sling-shot' like orbit which gets close to its star around its star before swinging around and getting further away.<br /><br /><keyword id="122247" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Exoplanets">Exoplanets</keyword> aren't known for planets that 'slingshot' around their stars but the planet dubbed HR 5183 b, which is three times the size of Jupiter, in an exception to the rule.<br /><br />In fact, it was the planet's weird path that caught the attention of astronomers at the <a href="http://www.keckobservatory.org/weird-orbit/">Keck Observatory</a>. It paved the way for the discovery of other giant planets that might be behaving in a similar manner.<br /><br />Instead of going around in a flat circle, HR 5138 b has an <keyword id="1731000" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="elliptical-orbit">elliptical orbit</keyword> that isn't equidistant from its star on all sides.<br /><br />
  <div type="image" title="orbit lit" msid="70959666" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;HR 5138 b&amp;#39;s elliptical orbit&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>



<br /><br /><strong>Twenty long years of waiting and watching<br /></strong><br />It took 20 years of observations to figure out that the planet has an 'highly eccentric' orbit because it only circles its star every 45 to 100 years.<br /><br />"This planet spends most of its time loitering in the outer part of its star's planetary system in this highly eccentric orbit, then it starts to accelerate in and does a slingshot around its star," explains Andrew Howard, an astronomy professor at Caltech.<br /><br />If the planet was placed in our solar system, it would swing from our asteroid belt to beyond Neptune — covering approximately 3.7 million kilometers — according to a study published in <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.09925">The Astronomical Journal.</a><br /><br /><strong>No influence</strong><br /><br />Scientists initially assumed that the HR 5138 b's wonky orbit was because another planet might be exerting its gravitational influence. <br /><br />But that wasn't the case.<br /><br />They now believe that the planet probably had a neighbour of similar size. Both the planets would have originally had flat and circular orbits. But, getting too close to each other, one pushed the other out of the solar system causing the HR 5138's slingshot orbit.<br /><br />"This newfound planet basically would have come in like a wrecking ball — knocking anything in its way out of the system," said Howard.<br /><br />
  <div type="Youtube" id="aPeoF8EGO8Q" title="The Strange Orbit of HR 5183 b" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aPeoF8EGO8Q/mqdefault.jpg"></div>



<br /><strong>See also:<br /></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/indias-top-space-agency-discovers-an-epic-planet-600-light-years-away/articleshow/64540798.cms">India's top space agency discovers an EPIC planet 600-light years away</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/a-new-dark-planet-on-nasas-radar-might-hold-the-key-to-what-makes-or-breaks-a-planet/articleshow/70768925.cms">A new 'dark' planet on NASA's radar might hold the key to what makes or breaks a planet</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/scavenger-hunt-for-planet-x-just-dropped-another-clue/articleshow/66072531.cms">Scavenger hunt for Planet X just dropped another clue</a><br />

A planet thrice the size of Jupiter discovered due to its 'strange orbit'

Using data from <keyword id="6360409" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword>'s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, scientists have identified an <keyword id="6359982" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="earth" source="Orion">Earth</keyword>-size world, called TOI 700 e, orbiting within the habitable zone of its star, the range of distances where liquid water could occur on a planet's surface. The world is 95% Earth's size and likely rocky.<br /><br />Astronomers previously discovered three planets in this system, called TOI 700 b, c, and d. Planet d also orbits in the habitable zone. But scientists needed an additional year of <keyword id="1631115" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="tess" source="Orion">TESS</keyword> observations to discover TOI 700 e.<br /><br />"This is one of only a few systems with multiple, small, habitable-zone planets that we know of," said Emily <keyword id="374990" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="gilbert" source="Orion">Gilbert</keyword>, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California who led the work. "That makes the TOI 700 system an exciting prospect for additional follow up. Planet e is about 10% smaller than planet d, so the system also shows how additional TESS observations help us find smaller and smaller worlds."<br /><br />Gilbert presented the result on behalf of her team at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Association in Seattle. A paper about the newly discovered planet was accepted by The Astrophysical Journal Letters.<br /><br />TOI 700 is a small, cool M dwarf star located around 100 light-years away in the southern constellation Dorado. In 2020, Gilbert and others announced the discovery of the Earth-size, habitable-zone planet d, which is on a 37-day orbit, along with two other worlds.<br /><br />The innermost planet, TOI 700 b, is about 90% Earth's size and orbits the star every 10 days. TOI 700 c is over 2.5 times bigger than Earth and completes an orbit every 16 days. The planets are probably tidally locked, which means they spin only once per orbit such that one side always faces the star, just as one side of the <keyword id="42440" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="moon" source="Orion">Moon</keyword> is always turned toward Earth.<br /><br />TESS monitors large swaths of the sky, called sectors, for approximately 27 days at a time. These long stares allow the satellite to track changes in stellar brightness caused by a planet crossing in front of its star from our perspective, an event called a transit. The mission used this strategy to observe the southern sky starting in 2018, before turning to the northern sky. In 2020, it returned to the southern sky for additional observations. The extra year of data allowed the team to refine the original planet sizes, which are about 10% smaller than initial calculations.<br /><br />"If the star was a little closer or the planet a little bigger, we might have been able to spot TOI 700 e in the first year of TESS data," said Ben Hord, a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park and a graduate researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "But the signal was so faint that we needed the additional year of transit observations to identify it."<br /><br />TOI 700 e, which may also be tidally locked, takes 28 days to orbit its star, placing planet e between planets c and d in the so-called optimistic habitable zone.<br /><br />Scientists define the optimistic habitable zone as the range of distances from a star where liquid surface water could be present at some point in a planet's history. This area extends to either side of the conservative habitable zone, the range where researchers hypothesize liquid water could exist over most of the planet's lifetime. TOI 700 d orbits in this region.<br /><br />Finding other systems with Earth-size worlds in this region helps planetary scientists learn more about the history of our own solar system.<br /><br />Follow-up study of the TOI 700 system with space- and ground-based observatories is ongoing, Gilbert said, and may yield further insights into this rare system.<br /><br />"TESS just completed its second year of northern sky observations," said Allison Youngblood, a research astrophysicist and the TESS deputy project scientist at Goddard. "We're looking forward to the other exciting discoveries hidden in the mission's treasure trove of data."<br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:<br /><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/sustainability/news/dump-and-donate-month-long-e-waste-collection-drive-across-120-cities-launched/articleshow/96887056.cms">Dump and donate: Month long e-waste collection drive across 120 cities launched</a><br /><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/telecom/news/tariff-hike-led-growth-5g-key-events-for-telecom-in-2023-decisive-year-for-vil-clsa/articleshow/96886908.cms">Tariff hike-led growth, 5G key events for telecom in 2023, decisive year for VIL: CLSA</a></strong><br />

A second Earth-sized world orbiting a dwarf star discovered by scientists

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/nasa">NASA</a> launched the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-planet-found-using-data-from-nasa-kepler-telescope-2019-1">Kepler</a> space telescope into orbit in 2009, which helped astronomers identify over 4,000 exoplanets - <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-space-telescope-tess-searches-for-alien-planets-2018-8">worlds outside our solar system</a>.</li><li>Based on that data, scientists estimate there could be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/10-billion-earth-like-planets-in-milky-way-galaxy-2019-8">up to 10 billion</a> Earth-like planets in the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-3d-map-of-milky-way-warped-shape-2019-7">Milky Way</a> galaxy. Some are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-tess-telescope-habitable-world-31-light-years-away-2019-7">in our galactic backyard</a>.</li><li>In September, scientists <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/water-vapor-on-potentially-habitable-super-earth-exoplanet-2019-9">discovered water vapor on a potentially habitable exoplanet</a>&#xa0;for the first time ever.</li><li>Here are 16 exoplanets that offer our best chance of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microbes-under-alaskan-ice-could-mirror-alien-life-2019-7">finding alien life</a> outside our solar system.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>Scientists <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/water-vapor-on-potentially-habitable-super-earth-exoplanet-2019-9">detected water vapor</a> on a potentially habitable planet last month - a major step in the hunt for alien life.</p><p>The discovery was the culmination of a decade-long search that began when NASA shot the Kepler space telescope into orbit in 2009.</p><p>The telescope used what's known as the transit method to look for exoplanets (worlds outside our solar system), launching a new era of planetary discovery. Kepler watched over 530,000 stars for tiny dips in brightness that could be caused by a planet passing in front of the star - transits, in other words. Since then, astronomers have discovered over 4,000 exoplanets, and another 4,000-plus candidates are waiting to be confirmed with further observation.</p><p>This data has taught us that Earth-like worlds may not be so rare. In fact, planets between the sizes of Earth and Neptune seem to be the most common type in the galaxy.</p><p>One recent analysis of Kepler data estimated that 20% to 50% of stars have small, possibly rocky planets orbiting in their habitable zones - the range of distances from a star in which a planet's surface temperature could allow for liquid water. That means there could be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/10-billion-earth-like-planets-in-milky-way-galaxy-2019-8">up to 10 billion Earth-like planets</a> in our galaxy.</p><p>Kepler retired last year after the telescope ran out of fuel, but it has passed the planet-hunting torch to the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-tess-telescope-finds-nearby-super-earth-sub-neptunes-2019-7">Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)</a>.&#xa0;</p><p>Here are 16 of the exoplanets we know about so far that have the greatest potential for alien life. <span style="background-color: #00ffff;"></span></p>

16 recently discovered exoplanets could offer our best chance of finding alien life outside the solar system

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/super-earth-orbits-proxima-centauri-closest-star-to-sun-2020-1">super-Earth</a> planet 280 light-years away seems to be about 10 billion years old, adding to growing evidence that rocky planets have existed almost as long as our <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/intelligent-alien-civilizations-in-milky-way-galaxy-2020-6">galaxy</a>.</li><li>Ancient rocky planets offer further evidence that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/aliens-on-nearby-stars-planets-could-see-earth-life-2020-10">extraterrestrial life</a> may have existed long before humans.</li><li>Scientists may have better success looking for signs of long-gone alien life than for active civilizations.</li></ul><p>A rocky, molten planet orbiting one of the galaxy's oldest stars could be scientists' best evidence yet that alien life may have arisen in the distant past.</p><p>The planet, called TOI-561 b, is a "<keyword id="856986" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="super-Earth">super-Earth</keyword>" 280 light-years away. It's about 50% larger than our planet and three times its mass, but it's unlikely to host life. It orbits so close to its star that the researchers who discovered it calculated that its surface temperature is more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, turning the top layer of rock into molten magma.</p><p>But this super-Earth is far older than scientists previously expected for rocky planets, suggesting that other stars could have ancient Earth-like worlds with temperatures more suitable for life. Such planets may have existed for twice as long as Earth, giving them plenty of time to support complex life and even intelligent civilizations.</p><p>The star that TOI-561 b orbits lies in the galaxy's "thick disk," the outer region above and below the flat plane that holds most of the Milky Way's material. Stars in the thick disk are about 10 billion years old, and researchers think that this planet is just as ancient.</p><div type="image" title="NASA Milky Way" height="1080" width="1440" msid="80260590" hostid="261"></div><p>"TOI-561 b is the first planet with a confirmed rocky composition around such an old star, demonstrating that rocky planets have been forming for most of the history of the universe," Lauren Weiss, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hawaii and the lead researcher in this discovery, said at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. "I just wonder if any of them have anyone we'd like to talk to."</p><p>The finding was <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/abd409">published</a> in The Astronomical Journal on Monday.</p><h2>Earth-like planets almost as ancient as our galaxy</h2><div type="image" title="hubble ultra deep field" height="1725" width="2300" msid="80260592" hostid="261"></div><p>The astronomers could tell how old TOI-561 b is because the planet's density is about the same as Earth's, even though its mass is three times more. That means it probably doesn't contain many heavy elements, like iron or magnesium.</p><p>It took billions of years for the galaxy to fill with heavy elements, since they have to be forged deep inside stars. When the stars age, die, and explode, these elements disperse and eventually coalesce into new planets. So 10 billion years ago, heavy elements were sparse and planets weren't very dense. That seems to be when TOI-561 b formed.</p><p>"Gosh, if we've only been around for 5 billion years, imagine what could have happened on a rocky world that's been around for 10 billion years," Weiss said.</p><p>Her team discovered TOI-561 b using the W. M. Keck Observatory on Hawaii's Maunakea. There are two other planets orbiting the star, but their large size and low mass indicates that they're gaseous, like Jupiter.</p><h2>The hunt for <keyword id="77929" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="aliens">aliens</keyword> could include fossils</h2><div type="image" title="mars rover sample return mission perseverance" height="1080" width="1440" msid="80260595" hostid="261"></div><p>This discovery adds to a growing body of research that suggests life on other planets could have evolved, developed technological civilizations, and gone extinct long before life arose on Earth.</p><p>This could open an entirely new path in the search for <keyword id="1608062" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="extraterrestrial-life">extraterrestrial life</keyword>. Instead of listening for messages from aliens seeking out other intelligent life, scientists may have more luck scanning the skies for fossils.</p><p>"If you look for evidence that things existed in the past in addition to the present, you have a bigger chance of finding something," Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb told Insider's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/aylin-woodward">Aylin Woodward</a>.</p><p>Loeb's new <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alien-object-close-to-earth-in-2017-says-harvard-professor-2021-1">book</a> "Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth" argues that the first interstellar visitor seen passing Earth - a disc-shaped object called 'Oumuamua - was a defunct piece of alien technology.</p><div type="image" title="The OUMUAMUA object rendering Hawaii observatory aliens\.JPG" height="2188" width="2917" msid="80260597" hostid="261"></div><p>NASA's next rover to Mars, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-perseverance-mars-rover-launch-2020-7">Perseverance</a>, is set to search for its own remnants of past life. If its landing goes according to plan on February 18, the robot explorer will scan an ancient lakebed for signs of long-gone Martian microbes. It's set to take samples of interesting rocks and dirt and set them aside for a later mission to bring back to Earth.</p><p>As for the rest of the galaxy, current efforts are mostly focused on finding more rocky planets that could have habitable temperatures, then examining their atmospheres for signs of life.</p><div type="image" title="james webb space telescope" height="2048" width="2048" msid="80260600" hostid="261"></div><p>NASA's $10 billion <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-james-webb-space-telescope-jwst-launch-date-october-2021-2020-7">James Webb Space Telescope</a> is scheduled to launch into Earth's orbit on Halloween. The project aims to study every phase of the universe's history, helping reveal how the first stars and galaxies formed. By peering at other stars and planets in infrared light, JWST should be able to see the atmospheres of alien planets.</p><p>Other <keyword id="62018" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Telescopes">telescopes</keyword> aimed at examining Earth-sized planets like TOI-561 b have been proposed but not yet built. The Habitable <keyword id="54132" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="exoplanet">Exoplanet</keyword> Observatory (HabEx) would directly image Earth-like planets for the first time. Another telescope concept, called Large UV/Optical/IR Surveyor (LUVOIR), would also search for signs of habitability, or of life itself, on distant planets.</p>

An ancient super-Earth offers an unexpected clue that life in our galaxy could be older than scientists thought

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Astronomers have identified 1,004 sun-like <keyword id="6370911" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Stars">stars</keyword> that could have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-like-planets-common-recent-discoveries-2019-11">Earth-like planets</a> in their orbits.</li><li>Any intelligent <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spaceship-flying-by-venus-wednesday-could-help-look-alien-life-2020-10">aliens</a> on those <keyword id="122247" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Exoplanets">exoplanets</keyword> would be able to detect the signs of life on <keyword id="6359982" type="LOCATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="earth">Earth</keyword>.</li><li>The researchers say these stars could be prime targets in the search for alien life: If we know about the <keyword id="77929" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="aliens">aliens</keyword> and they know about us, there might be a better chance of communicating.</li></ul><p>If there are aliens in our galaxy, they might already know about us.</p><p>In a new study, two astronomers have identified 1,004 sun-like stars that could all have habitable Earth-like planets in their orbits. Any intelligent aliens on those exoplanets should be able to see Earth and spot the chemical signs of life here.</p><p>That's because, from those planets' perspectives, Earth passes in front of the sun each time it orbits — a tiny, dark spot in front of the blazing star.</p><p>This appearance is called a transit; astronomers on Earth use these tiny drops in the brightness of other stars to identify planets passing in front of them. In just 11 years, scientists have discovered more than 3,000 planets using this method.</p><div type="image" title="venus transit sun transiting planet" height="360" width="640" msid="78818726" hostid="261"></div><p>By measuring how the light from a star changes when a transiting planet passes in front of it, scientists can determine the exoplanet's size and, sometimes, the composition of its atmosphere. So it follows that intelligent aliens could do the same about Earth. If they did, they would spot signs of life: Plants on our planet fill the atmosphere with oxygen, and bacteria produce nitrous oxide, a gas which is unlikely to appear without biological processes.</p><p>"If we found a planet with a vibrant biosphere, we would get curious about whether or not someone is there looking at us too," Lisa Kaltenegger, a co-author of the new <a href="https://academic.oup.com/mnrasl/article/499/1/L111/5931805">study</a>, said in a <a href="https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2020/10/smile-wave-some-exoplanets-may-be-able-see-us-too">press release</a>. She and her co-author, Joshua Pepper, an associate professor of physics at Lehigh University, published their research Wednesday in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.</p><p>All the stars identified in the study are within 326 light-years of Earth. That makes them prime targets in the search for intelligent alien life. If they can see us and we can see them, there'd be a better chance of communication.</p><p>"If we're looking for intelligent life in the universe that could find us and might want to get in touch, we've just created the star map of where we should look first," Kaltenegger, who directs Cornell University's Carl Sagan Institute, added. </p><div type="image" title="tess stars first science image" height="1019" width="987" msid="78818727" hostid="261"></div><p>Kaltenegger and Pepper selected the stars they analyzed from a catalogue that NASA uses to identify targets for its planet-searching telescope, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). TESS has scanned about 75% of the sky and found dozens of new planets, as well as thousands of possible planets that astronomers are still working to confirm.</p><p>The scientists excluded stars for which we don't have reliable data, so there may be far more than the 1,004 nearby stars they found from which aliens could see Earth. Scientists have only observed planets around two of the stars on Kaltenegger and Pepper's list, but astronomers think that most stars have planets, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/10-billion-earth-like-planets-in-milky-way-galaxy-2019-8">billions</a> of stars in our galaxy have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-like-planets-common-recent-discoveries-2019-11">planets that could be habitable</a>.</p><p>"Only a very small fraction of exoplanets will just happen to be randomly aligned with our line of sight so we can see them transit." Pepper said in the release. "But all of the thousand stars we identified in our paper in the solar neighborhood could see our Earth transit the sun, calling their attention."</p>

Any aliens living around 1,004 nearby stars should be able to see the signs of life on Earth, a study says

<p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Event Horizon Telescope/Hotaka Shiokawa</span></p><p class="caption">A computer simulation of how a supermassive black hole's accretion disk and its event horizon (or inner "shadow") might appear to a telescope on Earth.</p></div><p></p></div></div></strong></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>Astronomers, anthropologists, geologists, and many other scientists made mind-boggling breakthroughs in 2019.</strong></li><li><strong>Some highlights include work that produced the first image of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supermassive-black-hole-first-photo-2019-4">a black hole</a>, traced the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/origin-of-modern-humans-botswana-africa-2019-10">origins of modern humans</a>, and predicted future <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sea-level-rise-3-feet-in-80-years-un-report-2019-9">sea-level rise</a>. </strong></li><li><strong>These are 22 of the biggest scientific accomplishments of the year.</strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>. </strong></li></ul><p>In 2019, scientists around the world pulled off some impressive feats: They <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supermassive-black-hole-first-photo-2019-4">imaged a supermassive black hole</a> for the first time, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ebola-virus-timeline-possible-cure-2019-8">debuted two treatments for the Ebola virus</a>, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-first-ever-solar-sail-unfurling-in-orbit-2019-7">launched a spacecraft</a> into orbit that's powered by sunlight alone. </p><p>Over the past year, researchers have also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hidden-continent-greater-adria-buried-under-europe-2019-9">discovered a hidden continent</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/giant-squid-spotted-in-us-waters-for-first-time-2019-6">captured video of a giant squid</a> in its deep-sea habitat, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/japan-lands-spacecraft-on-ryugu-asteroid-2019-7">sent a probe to an asteroid</a> 5.5 million miles from Earth.</p><p>These and other accomplishments are improving scientists' understanding of our planet and the surrounding cosmos.</p><p>As a new year - and a new decade - approaches, here's a look back at some of the most mind-boggling scientific discoveries from 2019.</p>

The most mind-boggling scientific discoveries of 2019 include the first image of a black hole, a giant squid sighting, and an exoplanet with water vapor

You Searched For "first exoplanet discovered" and got 9 results

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