The unusal super Earth TOI-561b

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Author name
Ignazio Pillitteri
Source
Sketchfab
Polygon Count
62,400
Release Date
2021-01-13
License
CC BY 4.0
universeastronomystarsalienworldexoplanets

Asset Overview

The NASA TESS satellite has allowed astronomers to find four planets orbiting around a star similar to our Sun but much older (about 10 billions of years). The star and its planets are at a distance of 280 light years from us. The closest planet to the star, TOI-561 b has a mass of about 1.6 Earth masses, a radius of 1.4 Earth radii and it orbits around the star in less than 11 hours. Given the distance so close to the star the surface of this planet is very hot (about 2000C degrees). A group of astronomers has derived an average density of the planet of about 3 gr/cm3 (compared to the Earth average density of 5 gr/cm3). They speculated that in spite of its hot surface the core of the planet could be made of frozen water held together by the strong pressure inside the planet.