"TOI 700 e", the last distant exoplanet discovered by NASA
TOI 700 e, exoplanet represented on the left in this diagram bringing together the various known planets of its system, around their star.
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/Robert Hurt/NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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New announcement from NASA: the American space agency has discovered a new exoplanet, a planet that revolves around a star other than the Sun, which would look like Earth.
It would have roughly the same dimensions and is in what is called the habitable zone of its star.
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Today, more than 5,000 exoplanets have been discovered.
But in the lot, few are interesting in the quest for a life elsewhere.
The vast majority are either too big, too hot or too cold;
too close or too far from their star.
Only a few dozen ultimately resemble Earth.
"TOI 700 e" is joining the club.
A little smaller than our planet, probably rocky, it orbits around a dwarf star located in the constellation Daurade.
It takes 28 days to go around it, which places it in the habitable zone, a theoretical zone where the temperatures are compatible with the presence of liquid water.
But beware !
This does not mean that there is actually water on its surface.
Other parameters come into play.
For example, we do not know if “TOI 700 e” has an atmosphere.
It could also always present the same face to its star, as the Moon does with the Earth.
So many unknowns that will require more observations to learn more about this other world.
The new world, TOI-700 e, is in the ''optimistic'' habitable zone, meaning it's at a distance from the star where liquid water *could* exist on the surface at some point in the planet's lifetime.
https://t.co/M7BON9uyR7 pic.twitter.com/DjUFrjDjbe
— NASA Exoplanets (@NASAExoplanets) January 10, 2023
►Also listen: Are there sparks of life elsewhere in the Universe?
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