Paris: Scientists have discovered a planet where there is a possibility of having a huge ocean like Earth and if this proves to be true, then we will find another planet outside our solar system where life is possible. Scientists have discovered this planet thanks to NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. So far, more than 5,000 planets have been discovered outside the solar system, but only a few of them are in the ‘Goldilocks Zone’, where there may be water, which is a key element for life. ‘Goldilocks Zone’ means places which are neither too hot nor too cold.
The planet discovered by NASA’s James Telescope has been named ‘Exoplanet LHS 1140b’. It is being told that it is one of the few habitable zones found so far and has been investigated intensively since it was first discovered in 2017. This ‘exoplanet’ is 48 light years away from Earth, which is equivalent to more than 450 trillion kilometers (280 trillion miles). However, compared to the vast distance of space, it will be considered close. The exoplanet was thought to be a small gas giant planet called ‘mini-Neptune’, whose atmosphere was so dense with hydrogen and helium that alien life was also possible here. However, new observations from the Webb telescope have confirmed that the exoplanet is actually a rocky ‘super-Earth’. According to a study published late Wednesday in ‘The Astrophysical Journal Letters’, it is 1.7 times larger than Earth, but its mass is 5.6 times. The Webb telescope analyzed the atmosphere of the exoplanet as the planet passed in front of the star. There was no sign of hydrogen or helium, suggesting the planet was a mini-Neptune. “The density of the planet suggests it has a really large amount of water,” co-author Martin Turbet, of France’s CNRS scientific research centre, told AFP.
