Using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers has discovered a new massive and dense exoplanet. The newfound alien world, designated TOI-332 b, is one of the densest Neptune-sized planets known to date. The finding is reported in a paper published August 23 on the pre-print server arXiv.
The Target Pixel File for TOI-332 from TESS S1. Credit: Osborn et al., 2023.
A group of astronomers led by Ares Osborn of the University of Warwick, UK, has now confirmed another TOI monitored by TESS. They identified a transit signal in the light curve of a K-dwarf star designated TOI-332 . Planetary nature of this signal was verified by follow-up observations using ground-based facilities.
TOI-332 b has a radius of about 3.2 Earth radii and an unusually large mass of 57.2 Earth masses, what yields a very high density—at a level of 9.6 g/cm. The newfound planet orbits its host every 18.65 hours, at a distance of 0.016 AU from it. The equilibrium temperature of TOI-332 b was calculated to be around 1,871 K.exoplanet
The researchers noted that the interior structure of TOI-332 b is most likely dominated by refractory materials, potentially more similar to that of. They found that it likely possesses a negligible hydrogen-helium envelope, what presents a challenge to planetary formation theories.
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