A New Exoplanet of the Mini-Neptune Type May Have a Cool Temperate Climate and Liquid Water – Potential for Life.
Using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and several ground-based telescopes, a scientific team led by Dr. Akihiko Fukui from the University of Tokyo and the Canary Islands Institute of Astronomy has discovered a new star system named TOI-2285, which hosts a small gas planet with a cool climate.
Graphic depicting the red dwarf star and its temperate planet – (Image: SCI-NEWS)
According to Dr. Fukui, the previous Kepler space mission revealed that this type of planet is abundant in other star systems. Commonly referred to as “Mini-Neptunes”, they are sized between Earth and Neptune and are classified as gas planets.
As reported by Sci-News, Mini-Neptunes come in two forms: one is a group of hot, small planets that orbit too close to their parent stars, while the other form is cooler and slightly larger. The newly discovered planet belongs to the second category. Although it appears to be slightly outside the “habitable zone”, which is where rocky planets like Earth, Mars, or Venus typically exist at a moderate distance from their parent stars, its presence at this boundary, combined with its unique characteristics, suggests that this Mini-Neptune may have water.
The new planet, named TOI-2285b, orbits its parent star every 27.3 days and receives 1.54 times more light from its parent star—a red dwarf—than Earth receives from the Sun. It has a radius 1.74 times that of Earth but a mass that is 19.5 times smaller than Earth’s, as gas planets typically have a thick, cloudy atmosphere, making them quite light.
Astronomers believe there may be a layer of water beneath the hydrogen-rich atmosphere of the planet, and its rocky outer surface could also contain liquid water. Additionally, it has a climate similar to temperate regions. There are still many research steps to confirm whether the planet is truly habitable and contains life, but compared to what occurs in our Solar System, this presents an optimistic possibility.
This research has just been published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan.
