NASA Discovers Potentially Habitable Planet, Located 137 Light-Years Away

Super Earth: In a major breakthrough, American space agency NASA has claimed to have discovered a “super-Earth”, a planet capable of supporting life, which is located 137 light-years away from our blue planet. In a press release, the space agency stated that the ‘super-Earth’ orbits a reddish star and is relatively close to Earth. “A ‘super-Earth’ ripe for further investigation orbits a small, reddish star that is, by astronomical standards, fairly close to us – only 137 light-years away. The same system also might harbour a second, Earth-sized planet.”

As per the press release, the planet is named TOI-715 b which is approx. one and a half times as wide as Earth. The newly discovered planet orbits within the “conservative” habitable zone around its parent star. This indicates that TOI-715 may form liquid water on its surface. interestingly, ‘super-Earth’ completes a full orbit (a year) in just 19 days.

“Several other factors would have to line up, of course, for surface water to be present, especially having a suitable atmosphere. But the conservative habitable zone – a narrower and potentially more robust definition than the broader ‘optimistic’ habitable zone – puts it in prime position, at least by the rough measurements made so far. The smaller planet could be only slightly larger than Earth, and also might dwell just inside the conservative habitable zone,” the release said.