NASA Discovers a Second Nearby Earth-Size Planet: Here’s More About it

NASA has discovered a new planet, TOI 700 e that is of about the same size as our Earth. It’s sibling planet, TOI 700 d can also be seen in the image shared by NASA.

Read more about it below.

NASA Discovers a Second Nearby Earth-Size Planet

NASA has just discovered a new Earth-sized planet in the TOI 700 system. The planet is in the habitable zone of the system where liquid water can possibly exist under the right conditions.

The new planet discovered using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS has 95% of the Earth’s size. The planet is smaller than its sibling planet, TOI 700 d which was discovered earlier.

Apart from these two planets, scientists previously discovered the TOI 700 b and TOI 700 c planets in the system.

The TOI 700 d has a favourable condition like our Earth and falls in the most habitable zone, which means that liquid water and the atmosphere similar to the Earth can both be present under the right conditions.

The newly discovered TOI 700 e is likely going to be rocky. The discovery of the TOI 700 e, which is comparatively smaller than the rest of the planets in the system, has given scientists hope to find more smaller planets in the system.

The postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Emily Gilbert said that, the TOI 700 system is one of the only few systems with multiple, small, habitable-zone planets and this makes the TOI 700 system an exiting prospect to pursue more research.

The result of Gilbert and her teams observations were presented by her in Seattle at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The Astrophysical Journal Letters has also accepted the paper regarding the newly discovered planet.

BREAKING 🚨: NASA has discovered a second nearby Earth-size planet orbiting within the habitable zone of its star 100 light-years away pic.twitter.com/vLJELqyoIM

— Latest in space (@latestinspace) January 11, 2023