"NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has
discovered three new worlds that are among the smallest, nearest exoplanets known to date. The planets orbit a star just 73 light years away and include a small, rocky super-Earth and two sub-Neptunes -- planets about half the size of our own icy giant.... this new planetary system, which astronomers have dubbed TOI-270, is proving to have other curious qualities. For instance, all three planets appear to be relatively close in size.
There's nothing in our solar system that resembles an intermediate planet, with a size and composition somewhere in the middle of Earth and Neptune. But TOI-270 appears to host two such planets: both sub-Neptunes are smaller than our own Neptune and not much larger than the rocky planet in the system.
Günther notes that the planets seem to line up in what astronomers refer to as a "resonant chain," meaning that the ratio of their orbits are close to whole integers -- in this case, 3:5 for the inner pair, and 2:1 for the outer pair -- and that the planets are therefore in "resonance" with each other. Astronomers have discovered other small stars with similarly resonant planetary formations. And in our own solar system, the moons of Jupiter also happen to line up in resonance with each other.
"For TOI-270, these planets line up like pearls on a string," Günther says. "That's a very interesting thing, because it lets us study their dynamical behavior. And you can almost expect, if there are more planets, the next one would be somewhere further out, at another integer ratio."
"TOI-270 is a true Disneyland for exoplanet science, and one of the prime systems TESS was set out to discover," Günther says."
ScienceDaily
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God...
Hebrews 11:3
There's nothing in our solar system that resembles an intermediate planet, with a size and composition somewhere in the middle of Earth and Neptune. But TOI-270 appears to host two such planets: both sub-Neptunes are smaller than our own Neptune and not much larger than the rocky planet in the system.
"For TOI-270, these planets line up like pearls on a string," Günther says. "That's a very interesting thing, because it lets us study their dynamical behavior. And you can almost expect, if there are more planets, the next one would be somewhere further out, at another integer ratio."
"TOI-270 is a true Disneyland for exoplanet science, and one of the prime systems TESS was set out to discover," Günther says."
ScienceDaily
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God...
Hebrews 11:3
