An ocean-covered planet with a modest CO2 atmosphere, with the other properties of planet TOI 700d, could potentially be an inhabited planet suitable for life arising on it. (NASA’S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER/CHRIS SMITH (USRA))
Could There Be Life On The First Earth-Sized, Habitable Zone Planet Found By NASA’s TESS?
Unlike most articles that are titled with a question, the answer isn’t automatically “no.”
The habitable zone is the range of distances from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. If a planet is too close to its parent star, it will be too hot and water would have evaporated. If a planet is too far from a star it is too cold and water is frozen. Stars come in a wide variety of sizes, masses and temperatures. Stars that are smaller, cooler and lower mass than the Sun (M-dwarfs) have their habitable zone much closer to the star than the Sun (G-dwarf). (NASA/KEPLER MISSION/DANA BERRY)
If it has an Earth-like atmosphere, it could possess liquid water on its surface.
NASA’s TESS satellite surveys the entire sky in chunks that are approximately 12 degrees in radius, ranging from the galactic poles down to near the galactic equator. As a result of this surveying strategy, the polar regions see more observing time, making TESS more sensitive to smaller and more distant planets in those systems. (NASA/MIT/TESS)
TESS works by surveying different slivers of the sky one month at a time in succession.
An illustration of NASA’s TESS satellite and its capabilities of imaging transiting exoplanets. Kepler has given us more exoplanets than any other mission, but TESS has pushed us over the 4,000 mark. We are now using TESS to identify Earth-sized, potentially habitable candidates suitable for direct imaging and transit spectroscopy by James Webb and beyond. (NASA)
The polar areas receive the greatest coverage, and include the region where the star TOI 700 is located.
The Universe is: Expanding, cooling, and dark. It starts with a bang! #Cosmology Science writer, astrophysicist, science communicator & NASA columnist.
