NASA's TESS discovers new exoplanet 53 light years away
NASA's TESS discovers new exoplanet
YES. NASA's planet-hunting probe - the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), has discovered a new exoplanet which is said to be orbiting a star named HD 21749. The star is around 53 light years away from the Earth and is roughly 80 percent of the mass of the Sun. Astronomers would assume that it might be potentially inhabitable, at least for the life we know.
While HD 21749c is the size of Earth, it’s almost undoubtedly inhospitable to life as we know it. With its tight orbit, the surface temperature on HD 21749c is probably in excess of 800 degrees Fahrenheit (426 degrees Celsius). Still, this is an important milestone for TESS, with which NASA hopes to catalog at least 50 Earth-like planets during its two-year mission.
