New planet could hold life
Many scientists have now stopped asking if there is life on other planets – instead, they’re just trying to work out where it is. Now, researchers think they have found a possible location, a distant planet given the catchy name of TOI-715 b.
TOI-715 b was discovered by TESS, a telescope owned by the US space agency NASA. The planet is classed as a super-Earth, although this just means it’s bigger than Earth but smaller than ice giants such as Neptune or Uranus. It lies 137 light years away from our planet. This means that if you were travelling at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), it would take you 137 years to reach it. This may seem like a very long way away, but because the universe is so huge it’s considered quite close.
The newly discovered planet is about one and a half times as wide as Earth and is orbiting (moving around) a type of star called a red dwarf. The distance between this star and TOI-715 b is much shorter than between Earth and the Sun but because red dwarfs are smaller and cooler than our Sun it could be a similar temperature to Earth.
This means that TOI-715 b could perhaps be the right temperature to host liquid water, and scientists believe that this is essential to the existence of life (at least in the form that humans know it). Just like Earth, the planet is not too hot or too cold. However, the possibility of water depends on other factors too, such as the planet’s atmosphere.
Astronomers are planning to study TOI-715 b closer using NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope. Fortunately, the planet only takes 19 days to orbit the star (Earth takes 365 days to orbit the Sun). This means it can be studied more easily, as it frequently moves into the view of telescopes. Excitingly, there may also be another Earth-sized planet in the same system of planets where TOI-715 b lies, although scientists haven’t been able to confirm it yet.