Potentially Habitable Super-Earth Found

An international team of scientists recently announced the discovery of two new exoplanets, one of which is a potentially habitable super-Earth.

IMAGE: Comparison between the LP 890–9 system and the inner Solar System. The LP 890–9 system is much more compact: its two planets could easily fit inside the orbit of Mercury, the innermost planet of our Solar System. CREDIT: Adeline Deward

Collaborations are important, and an international team of scientists recently announced the discovery of two new exoplanets, one of which is a potentially habitable super-Earth. The parent star is LP 890–0, which is also cataloged as TESS Object of Interest 4306 and SPECULOOS-2, and this star is a very cold red dwarf. In fact, it’s the second coolest star we’ve found planets orbiting, after the famous TRAPPIST-1 system.

The first planet was discovered in data collected by the TESS space telescope, and it’s the closer of the two planets, orbiting in just 2.7 days. It’s also about 1.3 times the size of Earth. And here is where making data accessible becomes important. Using the SPECULOOS telescopes here on Earth, researchers were able to confirm this planet and pin down some of its characteristics. And they were able to detect that second planet, which didn’t appear in the TESS data.

The second planet is about 1.4 times the size of Earth and orbits in 8.5 days — blistering fast by our solar system’s standards. However, that particular orbit also puts the planet in the star’s potentially…