Photo credit: Benoit Gougeon, Université de Montréal
An international team of astronomers led by the University of Montreal have discovered exoplanet TOI-1452 b, a super-Earth located 100 light-years away and it could be an ocean planet. It’s roughly 70% larger than Earth, but its density appears to be consistent with having a very deep ocean, although more follow-up will be needed to confirm this.
Should TOI-1452 b be confirmed to be an ‘water world,’ its ocean could be quite deep. Why? Well, Earth’s surface is 70% water, yet makes up less than 1% of its, while TOI-1452 b’s water could make up as much as 30% of its mass. This exoplanet makes a full orbit of its star every 11-days, a red-dwarf star, which is smaller and cooler than our Sun. TOI-1452 b would receive a similar amount of light from its star as Venus does from the Sun. Back here on Earth, this person turned reclaimed ocean plastic into a guitar.
TOI-1452 b seems perfectly positioned for further investigation by the James Webb Space Telescope, now delivering science observations from its perch about a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth,” said NASA.
