An international team of astronomers has discovered a magnificent exoplanet dubbed “TOI-1680 b” via NASA’s “Transiting Exoplanet Tracking Satellite” (TESS). This super-Earth is approximately 1.46 times the Earth’s radius and weighs about 3.18 times the Earth’s mass.
This new exoplanet orbits an M-type dwarf star about 50 percent larger than Earth and 120 light-years from us. The exciting discovery was detailed in an article published July 11 on arXiv.
TESS is working to look for transiting exoplanets by observing about 200,000 of the brightest stars close to the Sun. To date, 363 of the approximately 6,700 exoplanet candidates TESS has identified have been confirmed, and TOI-1680 b is one of the latest discoveries to join this exciting list.
An Important Step To Study New Planets In Space
A team of astronomers led by Mourad Ghachoui of the University of Liège in Belgium has made another new discovery, confirming another TOI that TESS is tracking. Ghachoui and colleagues announced that they have detected a transit signal in the light curve of an inactive M-type dwarf star known as “TOI-1680.” Ground-based photometry measurements, high-resolution imaging, and spectroscopic observations confirmed that this signal originated from a planet.
“We report the discovery and initial identification of TOI-1680 b, a super-Earth orbiting a faint medium M-type dwarf (V = 15.87),” the researchers wrote in their paper.
This discovery can be considered as an important step towards understanding and studying new planets in space. The properties of TOI-1680 b could help us learn more about the formation and evolution of planets, and future observations may reveal more interesting findings.
About Half the Size of Earth
‘TOI-1680 b’ is a ‘super-Earth’ about one and a half times the size of Earth, an estimated 1.46 times wider than Earth’s radius, and a mass equivalent to about 3.18 times Earth’s mass. These dimensions correspond to an average density of 5.5 g/cm3. The planet orbits at a distance of about 0.03 AU (Astronomical Units) from its host star, making a full cycle every 4.8 days. The estimated equilibrium temperature of ‘TOI-1680 b’ is 130.85 degrees Celsius.
The host star is a faint and dormant star of spectral type ‘M4.5’, also known as ‘TIC 259168516’. This star is about five times smaller and less massive than the Sun. The distance between us and ‘TOI-1680’ has been calculated to be approximately 121 light years, and the effective temperature of the star has been determined to be approximately 2,938 degrees Celsius.
The research revealed that ‘TOI-1680 b’ has a transmission spectroscopic metric (TSM) of 7.82. This result shows that ‘TOI-1680 b’ may be a suitable target for atmospheric identification studies to be carried out by the ‘NIRSpec/PRISM’ instrument of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Such investigations can help us better understand the planet’s atmospheric properties and determine whether it potentially harbors life.
Looks like a Promising Candidate
The authors of the article stated that TOI-1680 b appears to be a promising candidate for atmospheric identification via JWST, according to the transmission spectroscopy metric (TSM) of Kempton et al.
In addition to atmospheric identification studies, the team led by Mourad Ghachoui plans to perform radial velocity measurements of ‘TOI-1680 b’ using the ‘MAROON-X’ high-resolution, optical, fiber-fed stage spectrograph on the 8.1 m Gemini North Telescope. This type of survey could allow direct measurement of mass, which is important for determining the composition of the planet.
These studies can help us learn more about the atmosphere and composition of TOI-1680 b, and potentially provide clues to the existence of life. Studying this promising candidate offers an exciting opportunity to advance our knowledge of the planets and the spread of life in the universe.
