Astronomers discovers an exoplanet largely covered in water

It is allowed to dream: after studying the data of the telescope TESS of the NASA, an international team of researchers claims to have discovered a new exoplanet orbiting one of the stars of a binary system (“two suns”). Located in the dragon constellation (a hundred light-years from our Earth), the exoplanet TOI-1452b revolves around the star TOI-1452. The mass of the planet, measured using the SPIRou (yes!) infrared instrument of the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope, would be 5 times greater than the mass of the Earth.

It is above all the distance separating the exoplanet from its star that particularly intrigues the researchers: TOI-1452 b would indeed be located far enough from its star for the temperature on its surface to be “relatively” temperate. In addition, the very low density of the planet suggests that it is probably largely covered with water. If all the oceans represent 1% of the total mass of our Earth, the mass of water on the surface (or under the surface) of TOI-1452 b would represent 30% of the total mass of the exoplanet!

This percentage of water would approach that of certain moons of our solar system, such as Enceladus, Ganymede or Callisto. Above all, the presence of water in such large volumes, combined with not very excessive temperatures in hot or cold, gives hope that life forms could have developed in the oceans of TOI-1452 b. The study on the exoplanet TOI-1452 b was published in The Astronomical Journal.