{"id":18195,"date":"2019-01-07T20:09:53","date_gmt":"2019-01-07T12:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/tess-planet-hunters-add-a-sub-neptune-world-to-discovery-list-with-more-to-come\/"},"modified":"2019-01-07T20:09:53","modified_gmt":"2019-01-07T12:09:53","slug":"tess-planet-hunters-add-a-sub-neptune-world-to-discovery-list-with-more-to-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/tess-planet-hunters-add-a-sub-neptune-world-to-discovery-list-with-more-to-come\/","title":{"rendered":"TESS planet-hunters add a \u2018sub-Neptune\u2019 world to discovery list, with more to come"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"TESS
An artist\u2019s conception shows NASA\u2019s Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite, or TESS, with an assortment of exoplanets. (NASA \/ GSFC \/ MIT Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Less than a year after NASA\u2019s TESS spacecraft was launched, the scientists behind the mission have unveiled their third confirmed planet, a weird alien world that\u2019s between Earth and Neptune in size. And hundreds of additional potential finds are in the pipeline.<\/p>\n

The latest exoplanet on the list is HD 21749b, which orbits a star that\u2019s about 80 percent as massive as our sun, located about 53 light-years away in the southern constellation Reticulum. Its 36-day orbital period is a record high for the TESS mission.<\/p>\n

The \u201csub-Neptune\u201d planet is about three times Earth\u2019s size, but 23 times its mass. In comparison, Neptune is almost four times as wide as Earth but only 17 times as massive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis planet has a greater density than Neptune, but it isn\u2019t rocky,\u201d study lead author Diana Dragomir, an astronomer at MIT\u2019s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, said in a NASA news release. \u201cIt could be a water planet or have some other type of substantial atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s a water planet, HD 21749b is likely to be steamy: Based on its proximity to its parent star, the surface temperature could be in the neighborhood of 300 degrees Fahrenheit.<\/p>\n

There might be yet another planet that\u2019s a bit smaller than Earth and orbits even closer to the star HD 21749, making a complete round every eight days. \u201cIf confirmed, it will be the smallest planet we have found to date,\u201d study co-author Chelsea Huang, a colleague of Dragomir\u2019s at the MIT Kavli Institute, said today during a briefing at the American Astronomical Society\u2019s winter meeting in Seattle.<\/p>\n

The find is detailed in a paper submitted to Astrophysical Journal Letters.<\/p>\n