An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of two new exoplanets several times more massive than Earth. They orbit around a Sun-like star.
The discovery was made while analyzing data collected by the TESS spacecraft. It tracks changes in the brightness of stars that may be caused by the transits of their companions. Recently, a new name has been added to its list of discoveries. From 2018 to 2022, TESS observed the star HD 35843 and eventually detected a transiting signal. Subsequent ground-based observations confirmed its presence and also identified another exoplanet.
HD 35843 is a metal-poor yellow dwarf located 226 light-years away from Earth. It is slightly smaller than the Sun and has a similar mass to it. The age of the star is estimated at about 2.5 billion years.
The exoplanet found by TESS has been designated HD 35843 c. It is 2.5 times larger and 11.3 times more massive than Earth, giving it a density of 3.8 g/cm3. The exoplanet orbited at a distance of 0.25 a. e. (37.4 million km) from the star, and its equilibrium temperature is estimated to be 206 °C. It is one of the coldest extraterrestrial worlds detected by TESS.
The second exoplanet HD 35843 b has been identified from radial velocity measurements. It is much closer to its parent star. It orbits at a distance of about 0.088 a. e. (13.2 million km) and has a mass of at least 5.84 Earth masses. Because HD 35843 b is not a transiting world, astronomers do not know its size.
Based on the physical characteristics of the two found worlds, astronomers classified HD 35843 b as a super-Earth and HD 35843 c as a mini-Neptune. However, they note that it is too early to draw definitive conclusions about the composition of HD 35843 c, as it could be either a water world or a rocky exoplanet with a thick hydrogen atmosphere. The James Webb Telescope can bring clarity to this question. The relatively low temperature and high spectroscopic transmission metric make the exoplanet a rather promising target for its observations.
Earlier we covered whether the planets from Star Wars could exist in reality.
According to Phys.org
