NASA's TESS spacecraft discovers its first Earth-size exoplanet

This newly identified planet is the smallest world outside our solar system that TESS has spotted. And Space Shuttle data shows that HD21749c surrounds its star every 7.8 days, which means its orbit is narrow, which would result in surface temperatures of up to 800 degrees Fahrenheit. TESS has now found 10 smaller planets than Neptune, and his ability to locate this one is a good indicator of his ability to find other small planets – perhaps even some in the area of ​​"Burrows". "or", close enough to their star to have liquid water but far enough to avoid being roasted.

Before TESS's predecessor, the Kepler Space Telescope, ran out of fuel and became undesirable, he discovered 2,662 planets, many of them the size of the Earth. But because they were so far away, they were harder to study. TESS, on the other hand, looks at planets much closer to us, so scientists can try, for example, to determine their mass. Then, the team of astronomers at the origin of this discovery will attempt precisely to do so. If they succeed, we could have the first mass measure of a planet the size of the Earth.