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NASA's TESS Mission Finds Its Tiniest Alien Planet Yet
By Passant Rabie 2 hours ago Science & Astronomy
The small planet is somewhere between the size of Mars and Earth.
The small planet is around 80% the size of Earth.(Image: © NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)
NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered a tiny planet — the smallest one it has found to date.
The planet, named L 98-59b, measures between the size of Earth and Mars and is around 10% smaller than the previous record holder discovered by TESS, which is around the same size as Earth, according to a statement by NASA.
"This system has the potential for fascinating future studies," Veselin Kostov, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland who helped spot the new planet, said in the statement.
L 98-59b is orbiting a nearby bright star, which is around one-third the mass of our sun. TESS also found two other planets in the same system, which are around 1.4 and 1.6 times the size of Earth, according to NASA. However, scientists aren't sure yet whether these planets have atmospheres and, if so, which gases are present in them.
More:
https://www.space.com/nasa-tess-discovers-tiny-alien-planet.html