UNITED STATES: About 100 light years from Earth in the Draco constellation, a team of astronomers from around the world have found an exoplanet with a thick ocean covering it. The exoplanet TOI-1452b is a little bigger than Earth and is located in a habitable zone, often known as the “Goldilocks Zone,” where the temperatures are just right for water to stay liquid.
TOI-1452b orbits is a star which is four times the size of our Sun. NASA’s TESS satellite telescope was found two years ago. It is thought that the exoplanet is 4.8 times more massive than Earth. As opposed to the Earth, which has less than 1% of water making up its total mass, The exoplanet is thought to have 30% water contributing to its total mass.
The exoplanet revolves around “a nearby visual-binary M dwarf star system.” The separation between the two stars is only 97 astronomical units, or around 2.5 times the distance between the Sun and Pluto, as the two stars orbit each other.
Dr Charles Cadieux, who headed the multinational team, noted that TOI-1452b is one of the most promising candidates for an ocean planet that we have discovered yet. It’s mass and radius point to a far lower density than one might anticipate for a planet like Earth, which is primarily composed of metal and rock.
What kind of life might exist there if TOI 1452b can support it, according to René Doyon, an astronomer at the University of Montreal and one of the co-authors of the study that was published in The Astronomical Journal, “some theories propose that life evolved at the bottom of the seas, near hydrothermal vents.” That place is teeming with life. The earliest bacteria also include some varieties that can survive in harsh conditions.
The James Webb Space Telescope will observe TOI 1452b in the following stage to validate the existence of liquid water. Doyon says, “We have to see if so much water can exist on planets in the habitable zone for a long period.”
It’s also plausible that TOI-1452b is not an ocean planet, the researchers added. They assert that it might also be a terrestrial planet with a thin, low molecular weight atmosphere or a planet made entirely of bare rock with iron content less than half that of the Earth.
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