One hundred light-years away in the cosmos, a sprawling ocean may slosh over the entirety of a distant planet.
Astronomers recently announced that the exoplanet TOI-1452 b is close in size to Earth and lies in a region of its solar system where liquid water could exist. Vast amounts of water — many times the amount of water on Earth — could account for the planet's lower density (as opposed to a world teeming with rock and metal). The team of over 50 scientists published their results in The Astronomical Journal.
"TOI-1452 b is one of the best candidates for an ocean planet that we have found to date," Charles Cadieux, an astronomer at the Université de Montréal who led the research, said in a statement.
SEE ALSO:The powerful Webb telescope found water in this alien planet's clouds
An artist's representation of the ocean on exoplanet TOI-1452 b.Credit: Benoit Gougeon / Université de MontréalThe NASA space telescope TESS, which surveys the cosmos for exoplanets, recently detected this potential water world when it passed in front of one of its stars (there are two stars in this far-off solar system). What clued the astronomers into the existence of TOI-1452 was a dip in the star’s brightness. (Some 50 hours of follow-up observations from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawai’i estimated the planet's mass and characteristics.)
"If TOI-1452 b were shown to be an ocean world, that ocean could be quite deep indeed," NASA noted. It's possible an ocean makes up some 30 percent of TOI-1452 b's mass. On Earth, water makes up just one percent of the planetary mass.
This new research underscores that TOI-1452 b is a compelling planet to further investigate. And astronomers now have an extraordinary exoplanet sleuth in space, the James Webb Space Telescope. It has instruments that can peer, in unprecedented detail, into the atmospheres of exoplanets to determine what they're made of. The powerful instrument is expected to revolutionize our understanding of exoplanets, of which we know relatively little.
Want more science and tech news delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newslettertoday.
"We've only been able to barely scratch the surface," Néstor Espinoza, an exoplanet researcher at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which runs the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope, told Mashable.
TOI-1452 b is in part of the sky the Webb telescope can easily see, and it's not too faraway. "Planet TOI-1452 b seems perfectly positioned for further investigation by the James Webb Space Telescope, now delivering science observations from its perch about a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth," wrote NASA.
TopicsNASA
(责任编辑：知識)
MashReads Podcast: What makes a good summer read?
How to fix your Instagram Story bug
NASA rover spots strange Martian rock revealing wild watery past
How to get a secret phone number to protect your digital privacy'Rocket League' Championship Series Season 2 offers $250,000 prize poolCat gets stuck in the most awkward position ever
Anyone with a cat can tell you that although their cat's claws are impressive scratching and hunting
...[详细]Scientists discover wild planet that may be covered by a giant ocean
One hundred light-years away in the cosmos, a sprawling ocean may slosh over the entirety of a dista
...[详细]Google Maps Street View brings historical images to mobile
Finally, another excuse to lose hours staring at your phone.To commemorate the 15th anniversary of G
...[详细]
A decade ago, not long after the decline of Ashton Kutcher's supremacy on Twitter, in the days when
...[详细]These glasses hide a fitness tracker on your face
The last time a company tried popularizing wearable tech embedded in glasses, most notably with Goog
...[详细]NGL: the app that lets you share anonymous thoughts with mutuals
From ad trackers to algorithms that monitor your online activity, it can be difficult to remain trul
...[详细]Amazon will launch its drone delivery service later this year
After years of setbacks, Amazon is finally launching its drone delivery service later this year.On M
...[详细]Astronomer captures image of the huge, mile
It's extremely unlikely that a colossal space rock will slam into Earth in the coming centuries, and
...[详细]Uber's $100M settlement over drivers as contractors may not be enough
UPDATE: Sept. 7, 2016, 4:41 p.m. EDT 。 A ruling in a different case on Wednesday, Sept. 7 may have ch
...[详细]Ticketmaster's Platinum tickets are hurting fans
While obtaining tickets on Ticketmaster should be a breeze, it’s beginning to feel a lot more
...[详细]