Featherlight Exoplanet Detected
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Read the news release: https://www.dlr.de/content/en/articles/news/2021/04/20211202_an-eight-hour-year
Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Video imagery:
- Illustration of exoplanet GJ 367 b: SPP 1992, Patricia Klein
Writer: Leah Ramsay
Designer: Leah Hustak, Joseph Olmsted
Science review: Dr. Brandon Lawton
Education review: Jim Manning
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Objects and gases of various colors in outer space. Text, News from the Universe
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December 9, 2021. Featherlight Exoplanet Detected
NASA's TESS mission discovered the small exoplanet named G J 367 b.
It orbits so close to its star that a year goes by in only 8 hours.
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Follow-up observations show it is a rocky planet but featherlite – only half the mass of Earth
The exoplanet is dense, dominated by an iron core, similar to Mercury in our solar system.
This detailed study shows that it is possible to study a small, low-mass exoplanet, even at more than 30 light-years away.
This news was brought to you in part by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD