NASA’s TESS Planet Hunter Finds Its First Earth-Size World in “Habitable Zone”

Scientific American ^ | January 7, 2020 | Mike Wall

[Red Badger]

TOI 700 d is a landmark discovery for NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

NASA’s newest planet hunter just bagged some big game.

For the first time, the agency’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered a roughly Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of its host star, the zone of orbital distances where liquid water could be stable on a world’s surface, researchers announced today (Jan. 6).

The newfound exoplanet, known as TOI 700 d, lies just 101.5 light-years from Earth, making it a good candidate for follow-up observations by other instruments, scientists added.

“TESS was designed and launched specifically to find Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby stars,” Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. “Planets around nearby stars are easiest to follow up with larger telescopes in space and on Earth. Discovering TOI 700 d is a key science finding for TESS.”

TESS, which launched in April 2018, hunts for planets using the "transit method," looking for telltale dips in stellar brightness caused by orbiting worlds crossing stars’ faces from the satellite’s perspective. This same strategy was used to great effect by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which discovered about 70% of the roughly 4,000 known exoplanets.

[SNIP]

TOI 700 d, the outermost known planet in the system, is the really intriguing one. It’s just 20% larger than Earth and completes one orbit every 37 days. The alien world receives 86% of the stellar energy that Earth gets from the sun, putting TOI 700 d in the habitable zone (at least as it’s traditionally defined), discovery team members said.

[Red Badger]

They are kinda rare.....................

[cuban leaf]

Yeah, that stuff burns my lungs.

[John Milner]

So a year is only 37 days. Birthdays, anniversaries and a Happy new year every 5.2 weeks. Hope they have lots of alcohol.

[Track9]

The planet of VG’s.

[Red Badger]

Then don’t inhale........Bill Clinton showed us the away.................

[spudville]

I did a little research. There are two methods, at this time for space travel:
Solid/liquid fuel
ion propulsion.
You can’t load enough fuel on a rocket to go any great distance, so ion propulsion would be the better option. It is slower, however. Alpha Centauri is the closest star out of our solar system at 4.1 light years away. It would take 88000 years to get there. So at 101 light years it would take about 2 + million years to get to this planet (rounded off to the nearest “who gives a hoot”)

[Red Badger]

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. - Hamlet (1.5.167-8)...................

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Twenty percent larger?

Assuming that it is as dense as the Earth that would mean that it would be uninhabitable by unaltered humans at our current technological status.

We might be able to live very high in the mountains (assuming there are any) but the lowlands would be off limits.

And that is not even counting the stress that gravity would put on the human body.

[spudville]

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. - Hamlet (1.5.167-8)...................

Okee Dokee

[dragnet2]

That’s why they use spectroscopes which are used to analyze the light.

[woodbutcher1963]

Yes, but think of the Frequent Flyer Miles you will get with just ONE roundtrip!

[Karma_Sherab]

they cannot tell us what kind of gases are there.

Let's hope it isn't green house gases. The dems will try to tax us to fix it

[hoosierham]

One flight every 88,000 years sounds like an INFREQUENT flier.

[null and void]

We’re told Mars’ atmosphere is so thin because the lack of a magnetic field allowed solar wind to strip it away.

Ummmm, Venus has roughly 2-1/2 times as much solar wind flux as Mars.

And no magnetic field...

[null and void]

Starchips using laser sail power could reach Alpha Centauri in 20 earth years.

[spudville]

Four light years in 20 years?
Just WOW. Calculate the speed.
Truly remarkable.
Let’s see:
1 light year= 1year at the speed of light (186000 mi/sec)
86,400 sec per 24 hr day x 365 days a year=3,153,6000 (sec/year) 20 x 31536000sec =630,720,000 you are not even to Pluto at 3.25 billion miles
Oh to hell with it, my head hurts. You are so wrong. You cannot travel the speed of light let alone 5x the speed of light. ( per Einstein.)

[spudville]

Double points and your bags are free.

[GingisK]

I hope you won’t be too disappointed when we don’t have ET contact.

[null and void]

Spudville, Alpha Centauri is about 4 light years away.

That would be 20 years at 1/5th light speed.

The trick is a StarChip only weighs a few grams, so getting a small mass up to 1/5 light speed isn’t as difficult as one would think.

Still not trivial, but it is possible!

[null and void]

Pluto is about 5.5 light hours from the Sun.