NASA’s TESS Planet Hunter Finds Its First Earth-Size World in “Habitable Zone”

Scientific American ^ | January 7, 2020 | Mike Wall

[Red Badger]

TOI 700 d is a landmark discovery for NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

NASA’s newest planet hunter just bagged some big game.

For the first time, the agency’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered a roughly Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of its host star, the zone of orbital distances where liquid water could be stable on a world’s surface, researchers announced today (Jan. 6).

The newfound exoplanet, known as TOI 700 d, lies just 101.5 light-years from Earth, making it a good candidate for follow-up observations by other instruments, scientists added.

“TESS was designed and launched specifically to find Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby stars,” Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. “Planets around nearby stars are easiest to follow up with larger telescopes in space and on Earth. Discovering TOI 700 d is a key science finding for TESS.”

TESS, which launched in April 2018, hunts for planets using the "transit method," looking for telltale dips in stellar brightness caused by orbiting worlds crossing stars’ faces from the satellite’s perspective. This same strategy was used to great effect by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which discovered about 70% of the roughly 4,000 known exoplanets.

[SNIP]

TOI 700 d, the outermost known planet in the system, is the really intriguing one. It’s just 20% larger than Earth and completes one orbit every 37 days. The alien world receives 86% of the stellar energy that Earth gets from the sun, putting TOI 700 d in the habitable zone (at least as it’s traditionally defined), discovery team members said.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Another article on subject.

[usconservative]

Double points and your bags are free.

Earth first. We can strip mine the other planets later.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks fieldmarshaldj. The d'Urbervilles haven't nad this much attention in years.

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[spudville]

My calculations are based on known and tried technologies.
You can’t carry enough fuel to get to Alpha Centauri.
Ion propulsion is slower but will make it.
No where near 1/5th the speed of light. Future tech may indeed make it possible. Lots of physics to overcome.

[null and void]

You didn't look it up, didja?

Steven Hawking and many others say you can.

Breakthrough Starshot

You or I couldn't survive the acceleration needed to reach full speed, but a centimeter scale StarChip weighing a few grams could!

I hope I expanded your universe...

[spudville]

Also it takes an Earth based laser. Would take trillions of watts laser to get it there. Watched a show this weekend that showed the material you are talking about. Practically the same density as air. Close to weightless. The scientist on this show said it would not be possible at this time.
If and when it is possible the calculation isn’t available at, this time, as to how long it would take to gain speed. It starts out incredibly slow but gains speed continually and minutely. But as you said it will theoretically get up to some fantastic speeds. At this point it is all theoretic.

[spudville]

Thanks for the link. Cool stuff. Again it is still in the research phase. Lots of things may be feasible in the future. At this point in time my calculation (If you want to check them and let me know if I made a mistake) are for current tech. I’m the first to admit I’m like the guy in “Rainman”” only I’m not good at math.
The technology you are referring to doesn’t get anybody or any equipment to Alfa Centauri much less a presumably earthlike planet mentioned in the article.

[null and void]

From the article:

A phased array of ground-based lasers would then focus a light beam on the crafts' sails to accelerate them one by one to the target speed within 10 minutes, with an average acceleration on the order of 100 km/s² (10,000 ɡ)

[null and void]

Yeah, we ain't goin'.

But our electronic surrogates can.

There can be an amazing suite of sensors packed onto the chip.

Assuming a 50% survival rate, that's 500 bites at the apple for optical spectrographic, photographic, and radio spectrum analysis.

[spudville]

I guess I can’t make it clear to you.
I give up. In the future we will be able to eat a magic bean and fart ourselves to any where in the universe