Discovery by NASA’s TESS
An international team of astronomers has discovered a trio (a group of three is called a trio) of hot planets larger than Earth orbiting a much younger version of our Sun called TOI 451 or CD-38 1467.
Images taken by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) revealed this star with its three orbiting planets.
TOI 451 is just 120 million years old and is 400 light years away from us in the
constellation Eridanus (this collection of stars is less than 3% the age of our solar system).
This star has 95% of our sun’s mass, at 88% of the sun’s size. It is slightly colder than the sun and emits 35% less energy. TOI 451 rotates about its axis in 5.1 days – about five times faster than our sun.
The nearest planet to the star is named TOI 451b. It is just 0.03 Astronomical Units (AU) away and completes its orbit (the path taken by a planet to complete a revolution around its star) within 1.9 days. It is 1.9 times the Earth’s size.
The second planet, called TOI 451c, is three times the Earth’s size and completes its orbit in 9.2 days.
The third planet is four times the Earth’s size and is called TOI 451d. It completes a revolution of its star in 16 days. The temperatures on these planets range from 450 – 1200 degrees Celsius, making them unsuitable for life.
Because this planetary system is very similar to the Sun, but much younger, exploring these planets can help astronomers in understanding planetary evolution, and how atmospheres are formed on planets.