Watch: Astronomers find new super-Earth 154 light-years away
What's the story
An international team of astronomers has found a new super-Earth exoplanet, TOI-1846 b, using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The planet is located about 154 light-years away from Earth and is nearly twice as big and four times as massive as our planet. The discovery was detailed in a paper published on arXiv.
Satellite contribution
A look at TESS
Launched in April 2018, TESS has discovered over 7,600 potential exoplanets (TESS Objects of Interest, or TOI). Of these, 636 have been confirmed so far. The satellite is currently surveying around 200,000 brightest stars near the Sun for transiting extrasolar worlds. The discovery of TOI-1846 b was made by a team led by Abderahmane Soubkiou from Morocco's Oukaimeden Observatory.
Verification process
Planetary nature confirmed via photometric observations
The team confirmed the planetary nature of TOI-1846 b by doing ground-based follow-up photometric and spectroscopic observations. "We have validated TOI-1846 b using TESS and multicolor ground-based photometric data, high-resolution imaging, and spectroscopic observations," the researchers wrote in their paper. The planet has a radius of about 1.792 times that of Earth and is 4.4 times more massive than our planet, giving it a density at a level of 4.2g/cm3.
Orbital details
Likely a water-rich super-Earth
TOI-1846 b completes an orbit around its host star every 3.93 days, at a distance of some 0.036 AU from it. The planet's equilibrium temperature is estimated to be 568.1K. Based on these parameters, the astronomers think that TOI-1846 b is likely a water-rich super-Earth.