An International team of Astronomers has detected the new super earth. This new profound super earth known as has low density than Earth. They detected the new super earth using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS).
The new super earth designated as the TOI-244b, turns out to have an unusually low density. The finding was reported in a paper published on 8 May on the arXiv preprint server.
What is Super Earth?
Super Earth is more massive than Earth but not bigger than the mass of Neptune. Super Earth is a planet that is far from our solar system and they have an earth-like resemblance meaning they have Earth’s atmosphere.
How Astronomers Detected the Transit Signals of the TOI-244 Super Earth?
TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) is conducting a survey about searching for exoplanets. They survey a total of 200,000 of the exoplanets, and so far it has identified nearly 6,600 candidate exoplanets out of which 331 have been confirmed so far.
The lead astronomer Amadeo Castro-Gonzalez of the Spanish Astrobiology Center in Madrid, Spain has confirmed another TOI monitored by TESS. They report about the transit signal that they detected in the light curve of TOI-244- a nearby bright, early type M-dwarf star of spectral type M2.5V nearly half the size and mass of the sun.
This transit signal was detected by the radial velocity measurements conducted with the ESPRESSO spectrograph mounted on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile.
One researcher wrote “Based on the transit signal detected from TESS data, we carried out an intensive radial velocity campaign with ESPRESSO in order to confirm its planetary nature, obtain a precise mass measurement, as well as to search for additional planets”
What is Super Earth TOI-244 b?
The newly detected Super Earth TOI-244 b has low density than the other super earth. It has a radius of about 1.52 Earth radii, its mass is about 2.68 Earth masses, and a density at a level of 4.2g/cm3. The planet orbits its host every 7.4 days at a distance of about 0.056 AU from it.
Its equilibrium temperature is estimated to be about 458k. They also suggest that the TOI-244 b core is composed of about iron and silicates in a proportion similar to Earth. The planet is less dense than the majority of Super-earth of its size. The density of TOI-244 b is what would be expected for an Earth-like composition.
The reason behind the low density of the Super Earth TOI-244 b is the presence of a significant amount of volatile elements.
The astronomers added that Super Earth TOI 244-b will be studied in the future for its unique properties and will also be studied for its volatile atmosphere.