Our galactic neighbors have been found and they are just 33 light years away, scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology determined using a NASA satellite.
Tne U.S, space agency's Transiting Exoplanet Satellite Survey, or TESS, pinpointed a galactic neighborhood that is just 33 light-years away from Earth. This also has a central star, and two planets orbiting that star, and according to scientists, there are two terrestrial, Earth-like worlds in the cosmic pack.
Earth-like Planets May Not be Habitable Due to Extremely High Temperatures
The two terrestrial, Earth-sized planets may not be habitable since their orbits are relatively tight, exposing the planets to very high temperatures that may not be able to sustain liquid surface water.
The researchers also estimate that based on their short orbits, the surface of the inner planet is a roasting 710 kelvins (818 degrees Fahrenheit), while the outer planet is around 560 K (548 F).
To get there, scientists estimate that if one could travel at a tenth the speed of light, it would take around 330 years to reach to this solar system-like neighborhood in the galaxy. Realizing this may be far-fetched, obviously.
However, by using Earth-borne scientific equipment such as telescopes or space-borne spectrometers, or even the James Webb Space Telescope once it's fully operational, scientists can have a clear picture of what this neighborhood looks like.
Currently, researchers are providing comprehensive details about this solar system-like multiplanet neighborhood last Wednesday at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, California, so astronomers can shortlist such new exoplanets for important exoplanet studies.
And they've already provided a sneak peek into their findings, in a press release from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
According to researchers, the system's host star is dubbed HD 260655 and is relatively small, cool and categorized as an M-dwarf. M-dwarves are significantly less massive than our Sun. On the other hand, a G-type main sequence star is 10 times as numerous throughout the universe.
This galactic neighborhood is located just 10 parsecs, or about 33 light-years, away from Earth, making it one of the closest discovered multiplanet systems to our own solar system.
The team of scientists will present their discovery Wednesday at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, California.
How the Discovery Was Made
The new planetary system was initially identified by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an MIT-led mission that is designed to observe the nearest and brightest stars, and detect periodic dips in light that could signal a passing planet.
In October 2021, Michelle Kunimoto, a postdoc in MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research and a member of MIT's TESS science team, was monitoring the satellite's incoming data when she noticed a pair of periodic dips in starlight, or transits, from the star HD 260655.
The two planets in the system, Kunimoto said, "are each considered among the best targets for atmospheric study because of the brightness of their star." The team would like to determine if there is a volatile-rich atmosphere around these planets or if there are "signs of water- or carbon-based species" in these worlds.
Kunimoto ran the detections through the mission's science inspection pipeline, and the signals were soon classified as two TESS Objects of Interest, or TOIs - objects that are flagged as potential planets. The same signals were also found independently by the Science Processing Operations Center (SPOC), the official TESS planet search pipeline based at NASA Ames. Scientists typically plan to follow up with other telescopes to confirm that the objects are indeed planets.
The process of classifying and subsequently confirming new planets can often take several years. For HD 260655, that process was shortened significantly with the help of archival data.
After Kunimoto identified the two potential planets around HD 260655, fellow team member Avi Shporer determined whether the star was observed previously by other telescopes. Shporer found out that HD 260655 was listed in a survey of stars taken by the High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES), operated by Keck Observatory in Hawaii. HIRES had been monitoring the star, along with a host of other stars, since 1998, and the team was able to access the survey's publicly available data.
HD 260655 was also listed as part of another independent survey by CARMENES, an instrument based in the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain. As these data were private, the team collaborated with members of both HIRES and CARMENES with the goal of combining their data.
In the end, this collaborative effort quickly confirmed the presence of two planets around HD 260655 in about six months.
