NASA discovers 'ocean world' with 11-day-long year
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Astronomers from Montreal University use NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite to discover a planet straight out of Interstellar.
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From Christopher Nolan's 2014 film, Interstellar
Astronomers at the Université de Montréal stumbled upon a water-covered planet, dubbed an ocean world, using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a study published in The Astronomical Journal said.
The planet, TOI-1452, is fully covered with water and resides around 100 million light-years from Earth, orbiting within a binary star system among the Draco constellation, CNET reported.
The planet completes an orbit of its star every 11 days.
"I'm extremely proud of this discovery because it shows the high caliber of our researchers and instrumentation," said René Doyon a professor at the Université de Montréal.
"It is thanks to the OMM, a special instrument designed in our labs called SPIRou and an innovative analytic method developed by our research team that we were able to detect this one-of-a-kind exoplanet," he added in a press release.
Though the planet needs to be researched further for astronomers to confirm their assertions, it is believed that TOI-1452 is around 70% larger than Earth and its density could go hand in hand with the fact that it has a deep ocean.
"TOI-1452 b is one of the best candidates for an ocean planet that we have found to date," said Charles Cadieux, the lead author of the study.
"Its radius and mass suggest a much lower density than what one would expect for a planet that is basically made up of metal and rock, like Earth," he added.
The planet sounds like something out of Christopher Nolan's Interstellar; the planet is covered in water, and time is vastly different from that on Earth.
Something impressive about the planet is the fact that its orbit is close enough to its star to give it a mild temperature and potentially allow it to host life.
The exoplanet needed to undergo further observation with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, Professor Doyon explained. The James Webb is the largest optical telescope in space known for its high infrared resolution that helped capture images deep into the cosmos.
Check this: James Webb: The Hubble Telescope Successor
"Our observations with the Webb Telescope will be essential to better understanding TOI-1452 b," she said.
The telescope was launched on Christmas Day last year. On January 4, the telescope successfully deployed its giant sunshield to keep its instruments cold. On January 8, its primary mirror was ready, and major developments were completed. Later on, on January 24, the Webb got to its final orbit.
"Launching Webb to space was of course an exciting event, but for scientists and optical engineers, this is a pinnacle moment, when light from a star is successfully making its way through the system down onto a detector," JWST project scientist Michael McElwain said in a blog post.
