A super-Earth (and possible Earth-sized) exoplanet found in the habitable zone (phys.org)

submitted 9 months ago by GreyShuck@feddit.uk to c/space@lemmy.world

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Astronomers have found a new Super-Earth orbiting an M-dwarf (red dwarf) star about 137 light-years away. The planet is named TOI-715b, and it's about 1.55 Earth's radius and is inside the star's habitable zone. There's also another planetary candidate in the system. It's Earth-sized, and if it's confirmed, it will be the smallest habitable zone planet TESS has discovered so far.

TOI-715 is an average red dwarf. It's about one-quarter the mass and about one-quarter the radius of our sun. TOI-715b is close to the star, and its tight orbit takes only 19 days to complete one trip around the dwarf star. Since red dwarfs are much dimmer than the sun, this puts the Super-Earth in the star's conservative habitable zone.

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[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

I'll add this bit to the water thing. H2O is constantly created and destroyed by biological and other natural occurrences.

Photosynthesis destroying water:

6H2O → C6H12O6 + 6O2

But yeah, we don't know how we got loaded up from the git go.

this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024

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