The cutting-edge space telescope has just scored a trio of trophies, two of which might help NASA understand the creation of new alien worlds. TESS has discovered three planets orbiting the red dwarf star TOI-270, 73 light-years distant from the Sun. One of the worlds is a Super-Earth of a similar size to our own planet, while the other two are Sub-Neptunes approximately half the size of our solar system’s other blue planet. The star, dubbed TESS Object of Interest 270 (TOI 270), is 40 percent smaller than our Sun and about a third cooler.
The Sub-Neptunes are the more exciting find because they may represent a missing link between rocky worlds such as Earth and ice giants like Neptune.
This system is exactly what TESS was designed to find
Studying them will help scientists understand if ice giants and terrestrial planets evolve in the same way.
TOI-270 is also unusually inactive for a red dwarf as these stars are known to unleash frequently emit violent flares.
This behaviour is common in their youth, suggesting TOI-270 is a little older.
The star’s consistent brightness should make it easier to figure out the mass, atmospheric composition and other key characteristics of the planets in the system, study team members said.
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NASA exoplanet discovery: Three fascinating new alien worlds have been spotted 73 light years away (Image: NASA/Getty)
NASA exoplanet discovery: The two Sub-Neptunes may represent a missing link between types of worlds (Image: Getty)
Maximilian Günther, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, said: “There are a lot of little pieces of the puzzle that we can solve with this system.”
The study’s lead author added: “You can really do all the things you want to do in exoplanet science with this system.”
The NASA satellite latest discovery found the trio of exoplanets orbit the star every 3.4, 5.7 and 11.4 Earth days, respectively.
The innermost planet, TOI-270b, is the super-Earth, while the others – TOI-270c and TOI-270d – are the Sub-Neptunes.
They are all likely too close to the star and, therefore, are too warm to be capable of hosting alien life.
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The three planets appear to be in “resonance” with each other, meaning the ratios of their orbital periods are close to whole numbers, the researchers announced.
Mr Günther added: ”For TOI-270, these planets line up like pearls on a string.
“That’s a very interesting thing, because it lets us study their dynamical behaviour.
“And you can almost expect, if there are more planets, the next one would be somewhere further out, at another integer ratio.”
NASA’s TESS satellite launched in April 2018 and began gathering scientific data three months later.
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NASA exoplanet discovery: NASA’s latest planet hunter TESS was launched only last year (Image: Getty)
NASA exoplanet discovery: None of the planets will likely be capable of hosting alien life (Image: NASA)
The space telescope uses an array of wide-field cameras to perform a survey of 85 percent of the sky.
TESS is capable of studying the mass, size, density and orbit of a large cohort of small planets, including a sample of rocky planets in the habitable zones of their host stars.
The satellite works by searching for telltale brightness dips potentially indicating planetary “transits” — the passages of orbiting worlds across their parent stars’ faces.
TESS’ predecessor the Kepler space telescope also used the transit method, enabling it to spot approximately 2,800 exoplanets.
TOI-270’s relative proximity to Earth make future planet hunts, and planet-characterisation work, in the system feasible.
The scientists plan to study TOI-270 further with other instruments, including NASA’s $8.9 billion James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2021.
“TOI-270 is a true Disneyland for exoplanet science, and one of the prime systems TESS was set out to discover,” Mr Günther said.
“It is an exceptional laboratory for not one, but many reasons — it really ticks all the boxes.”
