NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered a third small planet outside our solar system since its launch in April last year.
About:
The new planet named HD 21749b, orbits a bright, nearby dwarf star about 53 light years away in the constellation Reticulum.
The surface of the new planet is likely around 300 degrees Fahrenheit and is relatively cool, given its proximity to its star, which is almost as bright as the sun.
HD 21749b journeys around its star in 36 days, compared to the two other planets discovered by Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) yet –
Pi Mensae b, a "super-Earth" with a 6.3-day orbit, and
LHS 3844b, a rocky world that speeds around its star in just 11 hours.
The planet is about three times the size of Earth, which puts it in the category of a "sub-Neptune".
It's more likely made of gas, of a kind that is much denser than the atmospheres of either Neptune or Uranus.
It appears to have the longest orbital period of the three planets so far identified by TESS.
Launched in April 2018 for a two-year mission, TESS will survey nearly the entire sky by monitoring and piecing together overlapping slices of the night sky.
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