NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) made a major discovery in 2022, detecting a planet orbiting the red dwarf star Eridani, 22 light-years away. We initially created LTT 1445 A c, scientists could not determine its quality. Recent studies have shown it to be as large as Earth, making it an ideal candidate for further exploration using instruments such as the James Webb Space Telescope.
This unconventional exoplanet, now identified as a super-Earth, has a mass approximately 1.5 times that of Earth and a diameter around 1.1 times our planet's. Space experts use various methods , such as the transit method , to think about exoplanets. TESS, launched in 2018, plays a pivotal role in recognizing transiting planets by observing the dip in light when a planet passes before its host star.
But when the machinery is not in sync, problems can arise, leading scientists to call this the “grazing transition.” In the case of LTT 1445 Ac, the limitations of the TESS data led astronomers, including Emily Pass of the Harvard Center for Astrophysics, to turn to the Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble's improved observations clearly showed Earth's orbit, allowing a more accurate calculation of its diameter, which is about 1.1 times Earth's.
Despite its proximity to the M dwarf star, LTT 1445 Ac maintains a temperature of about 260°C (500°F), reminiscent of a pizza oven. The discovery paves the way for future research as astronomers seek to probe more deeply the structure of exoplanets' atmospheres through spectroscopy, providing a better understanding of the arrays of planets orbiting stars.
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