NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has confirmed the presence of three so-called ‘warm worlds’ that could be useful specimens to teach humanity how atmospheres shape and evolve over time.
The three warm worlds, each slightly larger than our own, have been detected around a much younger version of our sun called TOI 451, located about 400 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus.
The star boasts 95 percent of the mass of our sun, although it is 12 percent smaller and emits 35 percent less energy. It also rotates five times faster than our sun, creating a much more intense environment for its emerging galaxy.
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Its farthest planet orbits three times closer than Mercury ever comes to our sun, so each of these worlds is extremely hot and is undoubtedly uninhabitable for life as we know it, with atmospheric temperatures ranging from 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 degrees Celsius). ). to ‘lows’ of 840 F (450 C) in the outer world.
Scientists expect that, despite the intense heat and crushing proximity to their star, these planets still retain their atmosphere and can serve as useful examples for them to study in terms of atmospheric formation and evolution, albeit in extreme conditions.
The signatures of the planets were initially detected in December 2018 and were later confirmed by numerous analyzes using the Earth’s most powerful telescopes and observatories.
The warm worlds were discovered in the fish-Eridanus stream stars, which are less than three percent of the age of our solar system, and extend over a third of the sky visible from Earth.
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NASA researchers suspect that the system retains a cool disk of dust and rocky debris, and that two astronauts may be dancing around each other in an orbit far beyond the planets. This makes it a useful example to study the evolution of emerging star systems, which could potentially provide insights into our own.
“It is only 120 million years old and only 400 light-years away, enabling detailed observations of this young planetary system,” said Elisabeth Newton, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA. , who led the research.
“And because there are three planets between two and four times the size of Earth, they make particularly promising targets to test theories about how planetary atmospheres evolve,” she added.
The discovery is expected to provide additional insights into how atmospheres form emerging planets in the universe, potentially refining man’s quest for both habitable worlds for colonization and intelligent extraterrestrial life.
“With TESS data, we can still push the boundaries of what we know about exoplanets and their systems for years to come,” said Jessie Christiansen, deputy science leader at the NASA Exoplanet Archive.
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