We Just Found a 'Super-Earth' That Could Be an Ocean-Covered Water World

The newly discovered planet is just 100 light-years from Earth and orbits one of a close binary pair of small, dim red dwarfs , it's orbit is just 11 days but as the Star the planet orbits is small and dim its orbit puts it in the Goldilocks zone , the discovery was made using the TESS exoplanet-hunting telescope.

The observations from both telescopes revealed that there is indeed an exoplanet orbiting one of the stars in the TOI-1452 binary.

By looking at how much light the star emits and how much it dims when the exoplanet passes in front, the researchers were able to ascertain that the exoplanet is relatively small, coming in at 1.672 times the size of Earth – what we call a super-Earth.

It's on an 11-day orbit with its star, which seems insanely close to us, with our comparatively leisurely 365-day orbit. However, because the star is so cool and dim compared to the Sun, this places the exoplanet bang in the middle of the star's temperate zone. This is not so far from the star, out in the cold, that any liquid water on its surface would freeze, nor so close that the water would evaporate under the star's heat.

Next step is to get Webb to take a look.

"TOI-1452b is one of the best candidates for an ocean planet that we have found to date," Cadieux says. "Its radius and mass suggest a much lower density than what one would expect for a planet that is basically made up of metal and rock, like Earth."

They modeled the exoplanet's interior composition and determined that as much as 30 percent of its mass could be water.

That's a huge amount of the wet stuff. For comparison, water makes up less than 1 percent of Earth's mass; TOI-1452b's composition seems closer to that of water moons Europa in orbit with Jupiter and Enceladus in orbit with Saturn.

However, with just the measurements we have, it is impossible to say exactly what TOI-1452b is made of. This is where Webb comes in.

You remember how the exoplanet passes between us and its star? Some of the star's light will pass through the exoplanet's atmosphere, if it has one. Webb is sensitive enough to detect the difference in that light in enough detail that scientists can work out what's in the exoplanet's atmosphere.

If TOI-1452b is a water world, Webb is our best shot at discovering it.
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Might be good for the dolphins, if they can handle the extra gravity.

a reply to: gortex

We?

Did someone forget to consult me?

originally posted by: schuyler
Might be good for the dolphins, if they can handle the extra gravity.

I'd be more worried about what effect flares would have at that distance from a star. Would the radiation improve the rate life evolved or could it be too much and irradiate the planet keeping it sterile of life?

Not my generation, or the next, but one hopes the stars are really the future for the human race. Just wonder whether we will every get off the first page before we are devoured by nuclear war, or ourselves.