Super-Earth discovered in orbit of Milky Way star. Scientists have discovered a hot, rocky Super-Earth orbiting one of the oldest stars in the Milky Way.
Nicknamed “TOI-561b”, the planet is about 50% bigger than ours, due to the proximity to the celestial body, and duration is less than half an Earth day to take a rotation.
Although the planet is approximately three times the Earth’s mass, the team calculated which it has the almost same density.
Members of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) project had gone to the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, to confirm its existence. It houses the most powerful space telescopes in the world. “TOI-561b is one of the oldest rocky planets ever discovered. Its existence shows that the universe forms planets with these conditions almost since its inception, 14 billion years ago,” told Lauren Weiss, team leader at the University of Hawaii.
According to work, the site, 280 light-years from Earth. ItIthas an average surface temperature above 1,726 degrees Celsius. It is it which makes it too hot to sustain any form of life. “It is surprising because you expect the density to be higher. This implies that the planet is ancient,” told Stephen Kane, an astrophysicist. He is a member of the study said in a statement from the University of California, Riverside.
“Information about the internal structure of a planet gives us an idea of the surface is habitable for life as we know it. Although it is unlikely that the particular planet will be inhabited today, it can be a harbinger of many rocky worlds yet to be discovered around the oldest stars in our galaxy,” told Kane.
The researcher emphasised that older planets have lower density because of the lack of heavy elements in their formation. It is unlike typical stars in the Milky Way. For example, Iron and magnesium might be produced by fusion reactions in the stars as they age.
The Astronomical Journal presented during an American Astronomical Society conference, discovering the planet TOI-561b and additional observations that the team made about its composition was published.