NASA's exoplanet-hunting telescope, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), has made a number of monumental discoveries, spotting new worlds at an impressive rate. And with the first TESS science conference taking place at MIT this week, a handful of new discoveries are slowly coming to light, including its discovery of three planets hiding around a nearby star. Around an M-type dwarf known as GJ 357, researchers have spotted a new system of planets.

One in particular could be rather remarkable: A super-Earth, currently dubbed GJ 357 d, may have liquid water on its surface. At only 31 light-years away, in the constellation Hydra, it's a promising glimpse of another potentially habitable world.

But TESS didn't actually see this particular planet. Instead, TESS, which snaps images of the sky from space, located GJ 357 b, a "hot Earth" that practically hugs GJ 357. As a result, the surface temperature at GJ 357 b approaches 500 degrees Fahrenheit. That's not so great for life, as we know it, but it does provide researchers an opportunity to study its atmosphere because it's the third-closest exoplanet we've yet found.

Studying data for GJ 357 b, scientists were able to discover two stars: GJ 357 c and GJ 357 d. The latter is notable because the research team responsible for its discovery note that it is in its star's Goldilocks zone, where temperatures are just right to allow for liquid water. However, it's much closer to its star than the Earth is to the sun and orbits once every 55.7 days.

"GJ 357 d is located within the outer edge of its star's habitable zone, where it receives about the same amount of stellar energy from its star as Mars does from the Sun," said co-author Diana Kossakowski, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, in a NASA press release. "If the planet has a dense atmosphere, which will take future studies to determine, it could trap enough heat to warm the planet and allow liquid water on its surface."

That's still a big if, of course, and astronomers will need to take additional measurements to understand the composition of the planet's atmosphere. If you were hoping for aliens, you're probably better off heading to Area 51 (please don't do that).

TESS had its robotic eyes peeled, looking for signs of GJ 357 d for a month, but researchers were not able to spot it using the telescope. Instead, they pored over decades-old data for signatures that confirmed its existence. The research, published in journal Astronomy and Astrophysics on July 9, details their findings and discusses GJ 357 c -- a planet in the middle of b and d, that travels around GJ 357 every nine days.

The exoplanet-hunting TESS was launched in April 2018, and its mission was extended through to 2022 in July.

What will the moon look like in 50 years?: A scientific outpost, a graveyard, a stepping stone to Mars. It all starts with the moon. I lived like a moon astronaut for the day: Preparing for life on the moon or Mars here on Earth is serious business. </s> Scientists have characterised the first potentially habitable world outside our own solar system located about 31 light-years away. The super-Earth planet — named GJ 357 d — was discovered in early 2019 owing to NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a mission designed to comb the heavens for exoplanets, according to the research published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“This is exciting, as this is humanity’s first nearby super-Earth that could harbour life — uncovered with help from TESS, our small, mighty mission with a huge reach,” said Lisa Kaltenegger, associate professor of astronomy at Cornell University in the US and a member of the TESS science team.

The exoplanet is more massive than our own blue planet, and Kaltenegger said the discovery will provide insight into Earth’s heavyweight planetary cousins. “With a thick atmosphere, the planet GJ 357 d could maintain liquid water on its surface like Earth, and we could pick out signs of life with telescopes that will soon be online,” she said.

Astronomers from the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands and the University of La Laguna, both in Spain, announced the discovery of the GJ 357 system in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

They showed that the distant solar system — with a diminutive M-type dwarf sun, about one-third the size of our own sun — harbours three planets, with one of those in that system’s habitable zone: GJ 357 d.

Last February, the TESS satellite observed that the dwarf sun GJ 357 dimmed very slightly every 3.9 days, evidence of a transiting planet moving across the star’s face. That planet was GJ 357 b, a so-called “hot Earth” about 22 per cent larger than Earth, according to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, which guides TESS.

Follow-up observations from the ground led to the discovery of two more exoplanetary siblings: GJ 357 c and GJ 357 d. The international team of scientists collected Earth-based telescopic data going back two decades — to reveal the newly found exoplanets’ tiny gravitational tugs on its host star, according to NASA.

Exoplanet GJ 357 c sizzles at 127 degrees Celsius and has at least 3.4 times Earth’s mass. However, the system’s outermost known sibling planet — GJ 357 d, a super-Earth — could provide Earth-like conditions and orbits the dwarf star every 55.7 days at a distance about one-fifth of Earth’s distance from the sun. It is not yet known if this planet transits its sun.

Kaltenegger, doctoral candidate Jack Madden and undergraduate student Zifan Lin simulated light fingerprints, climates and remotely detectable spectra for a planet that could range from a rocky composition to a water world.

“We built the first models of what this new world could be like. Just knowing that liquid water can exist on the surface of this planet motivates scientists to find ways of detecting signs of life,” Madden said.

“If GJ 357 d were to show signs of life, it would be at the top of everyone’s travel list — and we could answer a 1,000-year-old question on whether we are alone in the cosmos,” Kaltenegger said. PTI </s> A planet just 31 light years from Earth is ‘potentially habitable,’ according to a new study.

The ‘Super-Earth’ planet was discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a mission designed to look for worlds that could harbour life.

And astronomers said they will be soon be able to monitor the planet, called GJ 357 d, for any signs of alien lifeforms.

Team leader Dr Lisa Kaltenegger said: “This is exciting, as this is humanity’s first nearby super-Earth that could harbour life.”

As the super-Earth exoplanet is more massive than our own blue planet, she said the discovery will provide insight into Earth’s heavyweight planetary cousins.

Dr Kaltenegger, Associate Professor of astronomy and director of Cornell’s Carl Sagan Institute in the US, said: “With a thick atmosphere, the planet GJ 357 d could maintain liquid water on its surface like Earth and we could pick out signs of life with upcoming telescopes soon to be online.”

Astronomers from the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands and the University of La Laguna in Spain announced the discovery of the system in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

They showed that the distant solar system — with a diminutive M-type dwarf sun, about a third of the size of our own sun — harbours three planets, with one of those in that system’s habitable zone: GJ 357 d.

Last February, the TESS satellite observed that the dwarf sun GJ 357 dimmed very slightly every 3.9 days, evidence of a transiting planet moving across the star’s face.

That planet was GJ 357 b, a so-called “hot Earth” about 22 per cent larger than Earth, according to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre, which guides TESS.

Follow up observations from the ground led to the discovery of two more exoplanetary siblings: GJ 357 c and GJ 357 d.

The international team of scientists collected Earth-based telescopic data going back two decades – to reveal the newly found exoplanets’ tiny gravitational tugs on its host star, according to NASA.

Exoplanet GJ 357 c sizzles at 260 degrees Fahrenheit, and has at least 3.4 times Earth’s mass.

But experts say that the system’s outermost known sibling planet – GJ 357 d – could provide conditions just like on Earth and orbits the dwarf star every 55.7 days at a distance about 20 per cent of Earth’s distance from the Sun.

It is not yet known if the planet transits its sun.

Dr Kaltenegger and her team simulated light fingerprints, climates and remotely detectable spectra for the planet, which could range from a rocky composition to a water world.

Doctoral candidate Jack Madden explained that investigating new discoveries provides an opportunity to test theories and models.

Mr Madden said: “We built the first models of what this new world could be like.”

He added: “Just knowing that liquid water can exist on the surface of this planet motivates scientists to find ways of detecting signs of life.”

The team’s findings were published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. </s> NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered multiple planets outside the solar system, around 31 light-years away. These exoplanets are orbiting a star named GJ 357 in the Hydra constellation.

A study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, which reported the discovery of these exoplanets, revealed that GJ 357 is a star that is 40 percent cooler than our sun and is only about a third of the sun's mass and size.

Using TESS, scientists initially discovered an exoplanet named GJ 357 b. Experts consider this exoplanet as a Super-Earth as it is 22 percent larger and 80 percent more massive than the blue planet. This exoplanet completes its orbit around the host star in 3.9 earth days and analysis revealed that it has an average temperature of 490 degrees Fahrenheit.

Scientists stated that this exoplanet does not have the capability of hosting alien life due to its temperature.

However, the second exoplanet discovered by scientists named GJ 357 can be considered as a potential candidate to find alien life, as it lies in the outer edge of the star's habitable zone.

Experts speculate that this exoplanet, which is 6.1 times more massive than the earth, could have the right conditions to support liquid water on its surface.

"GJ 357 d is located within the outer edge of its star's habitable zone, where it receives about the same amount of stellar energy from its star as Mars does from the Sun. If the planet has a dense atmosphere, which will take future studies to determine, it could trap enough heat to warm the planet and allow liquid water on its surface," said Diana Kossakowski, a researcher who works at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the co-author of the study, Science Daily reported.

Researchers also said that the temperature in this Super-Earth could be negative 64 degrees Fahrenheit. Lisa Kaltenegger, study author and an associate professor of astronomy and director of Cornell's Carl Sagan Institute, revealed that signs of alien life could be discovered from GJ 357 d in the coming years using advanced telescopes.

GJ 357 c, the third exoplanet discovered is located in between GJ 357 b and GJ 357 d. GJ 357 c has 3.4 times the mass of Earth and a temperature of 260 degrees Fahrenheit. </s> NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has made several discoveries in recent days, including a planet with three suns and a sun with three planets. But the latest discovery may be the most surprising of all — an alien planet that is potentially capable of supporting life.

A group of astronomers using TESS made the discovery of the GJ 357 star in the Hydra constellation, approximately 31 light-years from Earth, NASA said in a statement. One light-year is the equivalent of 6 trillion miles.

The exoplanet in question, GJ 357 d, is on the outer limits of the star's "habitable zone," which means it likely gets the same amount of energy that Mars gets from the Sun, said the study's co-author, Diana Kossakowski. “If the planet has a dense atmosphere, which will take future studies to determine, it could trap enough heat to warm the planet and allow liquid water on its surface.”

“This is exciting, as this is humanity’s first nearby super-Earth that could harbor life — uncovered with help from TESS, our small, mighty mission with a huge reach,” said one of the study's co-authors, Lisa Kaltenegger, in a separate statement.

The government space agency has also posted a video to its YouTube page in conjunction with the discovery.

Assuming no atmosphere, GJ 357 d has an equilibrium temperature of -64 degrees Fahrenheit and is believed to have a mass of 6.1 times that of Earth. It also orbits GJ 357 every 55.7 days. It's unclear what GJ 357 d is comprised of and what its size is. However, if it were rocky, it would likely be between one and two times the size of Earth.

In addition to GJ 357 d, two other exoplanets were discovered, GJ 357 b and GJ 357 c. The exoplanet GJ 357 b is described as a "hot Earth," according to the study's co-author Enric Pallé.

Although GJ 357 b can't host life as we know it, due to its 490 degrees surface temperature, Pallé added astronomers are nonetheless intrigued. GJ 357 b is "the third-nearest transiting exoplanet known to date and one of the best rocky planets we have for measuring the composition of any atmosphere it may possess.”

The other exoplanet, GJ 357 c, orbits GJ 357 every 9.1 days and likely has a surface temperature approaching 260 degrees, NASA added.

Results of the findings were published in the scientific journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

PLANET NINE MAY EXIST, BUT IT MIGHT BE HIDING BEHIND NEPTUNE

The revelation comes just days after researchers used NASA’s TESS to discover the exoplanet LTT 1445Ab, which has three red suns and a star system, known as "TESS Object of Interest 270," 73 light-years away from Earth.

TESS, which launched in April 2018, replaced the Kepler telescope, which started to malfunction towards the latter part of last year and was eventually retired in October 2018 after discovering more than 2,600 exoplanets, including 18 Earth-sized exoplanets.

In September, the $200 million TESS found its first exoplanet, and in April, it found its first Earth-sized planet.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP </s> A piping hot planet discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has pointed the way to additional worlds orbiting the same star, one of which is located in the star’s habitable zone. If made of rock, this planet may be around twice Earth’s size.

The new worlds orbit a star named GJ 357, an M-type dwarf about one-third the Sun’s mass and size and about 40% cooler that our star. The system is located 31 light-years away in the constellation Hydra. In February, TESS cameras caught the star dimming slightly every 3.9 days, revealing the presence of a transiting exoplanet — a world beyond our solar system — that passes across the face of its star during every orbit and briefly dims the star’s light.



 Tour the GJ 357 system, located 31 light-years away in the constellation Hydra. Astronomers confirming a planet candidate identified by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite subsequently found two additional worlds orbiting the star. The outermost planet, GJ 357 d, is especially intriguing to scientists because it receives as much energy from its star as Mars does from the Sun. Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

“In a way, these planets were hiding in measurements made at numerous observatories over many years,” said Rafael Luque, a doctoral student at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC) on Tenerife who led the discovery team. “It took TESS to point us to an interesting star where we could uncover them.”

The transits TESS observed belong to GJ 357 b, a planet about 22% larger than Earth. It orbits 11 times closer to its star than Mercury does our Sun. This gives it an equilibrium temperature — calculated without accounting for the additional warming effects of a possible atmosphere — of around 490 degrees Fahrenheit (254 degrees Celsius).

“We describe GJ 357 b as a ‘hot Earth,’” explains co-author Enric Pallé, an astrophysicist at the IAC and Luque’s doctoral supervisor. “Although it cannot host life, it is noteworthy as the third-nearest transiting exoplanet known to date and one of the best rocky planets we have for measuring the composition of any atmosphere it may possess.”

But while researchers were looking at ground-based data to confirm the existence of the hot Earth, they uncovered two additional worlds. The farthest-known planet, named GJ 357 d, is especially intriguing.

“GJ 357 d is located within the outer edge of its star’s habitable zone, where it receives about the same amount of stellar energy from its star as Mars does from the Sun,” said co-author Diana Kossakowski at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. “If the planet has a dense atmosphere, which will take future studies to determine, it could trap enough heat to warm the planet and allow liquid water on its surface.”

Without an atmosphere, it has an equilibrium temperature of -64 F (-53 C), which would make the planet seem more glacial than habitable. The planet weighs at least 6.1 times Earth’s mass, and orbits the star every 55.7 days at a range about 20% of Earth’s distance from the Sun. The planet’s size and composition are unknown, but a rocky world with this mass would range from about one to two times Earth’s size.

Even through TESS monitored the star for about a month, Luque’s team predicts any transit would have occurred outside the TESS observing window.

GJ 357 c, the middle planet, has a mass at least 3.4 times Earth’s, orbits the star every 9.1 days at a distance a bit more than twice that of the transiting planet, and has an equilibrium temperature around 260 F (127 C). TESS did not observe transits from this planet, which suggests its orbit is slightly tilted — perhaps by less than 1 degree — relative to the hot Earth’s orbit, so it never passes across the star from our perspective.

To confirm the presence of GJ 357 b and discover its neighbors, Luque and his colleagues turned to existing ground-based measurements of the star’s radial velocity, or the speed of its motion along our line of sight. An orbiting planet produces a gravitational tug on its star, which results in a small reflex motion that astronomers can detect through tiny color changes in the starlight. Astronomers have searched for planets around bright stars using radial velocity data for decades, and they often make these lengthy, precise observations publicly available for use by other astronomers.

Luque’s team examined ground-based data stretching back to 1998 from the European Southern Observatory and the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, and the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain, among many others.

A paper describing the findings was published on Wednesday, July 31, in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and is available online.

TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission. </s> Dwarf Star –“Hosts First Nearby Super-Earth that Could Harbor Life”

“This is exciting, as this is humanity’s first nearby super-Earth that could harbor life – uncovered with help from TESS, our small, mighty mission with a huge reach.” said Lisa Kaltenegger, director of Cornell’s Carl Sagan Institute.

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a mission designed to comb the heavens for exoplanets, has discovered its first potentially habitable world outside of our own solar system – and an international team of astronomers has characterized the super-Earth, about 31 light-years away.

In a new paper in the The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team led by Kaltenegger, associate professor of astronomy, models the conditions under which the planet — discovered in early 2019 — could sustain life.

As this super-Earth exoplanet is more massive than our own blue planet, Kaltenegger said this discovery will provide insight into Earth’s heavyweight planetary cousins. “With a thick atmosphere, the planet GJ 357 d could maintain liquid water on its surface like Earth and we could pick out signs of life with upcoming telescopes soon to be online,” she said.

Astronomers from the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands and the University of La Laguna, both of Spain, announced the discovery of the system July 31 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. They showed that the distant solar system – with a diminutive M-type dwarf sun, about one-third the size of our own sun – harbors three planets, with one of those in that system’s habitable zone: GJ 357 d.

Last February, the TESS satellite observed that the dwarf sun GJ 357 dimmed very slightly every 3.9 days, evidence of a transiting planet moving across the star’s face. That planet was GJ 357 b, a so-called “hot Earth” about 22 percent larger than Earth, according to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, which guides TESS.

Follow up observations from the ground led to the discovery of two more exoplanetary siblings: GJ 357 c and GJ 357 d. The international team of scientists collected Earth-based telescopic data going back two decades – to reveal the newly found exoplanets’ tiny gravitational tugs on its host star, according to NASA.

Exoplanet GJ 357 c sizzles at 260 degrees Fahrenheit, and has at least 3.4 times Earth’s mass. However, the system’s outermost known sibling planet – GJ 357 d, a super-Earth – could provide conditions just like on Earth and orbits the dwarf star every 55.7 days at a distance about 20 percent of Earth’s distance from the Sun. It is not yet known if this planet transits its sun.

Kaltenegger, doctoral candidate Jack Madden and undergraduate student Zifan Lin simulated light fingerprints, climates and remotely detectable spectra for the planet, which could range from a rocky composition to a water world.

Madden explained that investigating new discoveries provides an opportunity to test theories and models. “We built the first models of what this new world could be like,” he said. “Just knowing that liquid water can exist on the surface of this planet motivates scientists to find ways of detecting signs of life.” </s> NASA has discovered the first ever nearby Super Earth which may have conditions capable of supporting alien life.

NASA scientists revealed the findings from the massive planet spotting telescope which found three new planets. The most interested is GJ 357d, which orbits a star around 31 light years away in the so-called habitable zone. Habitable zones are areas of space around a star which are far enough way that's not too hot, but close enough so it's not too cold. It is possible for liquid water to exist on the surface of a planet if it is rocky in the habitable zone. However, scientists admit further research is needed to work out whether GJ 357 d's atmosphere is dense and warm enough to host liquid water.

“This is exciting, as this is humanity's first nearby super-Earth that could harbour life ” "GJ 357 d is located within the outer edge of its star's habitable zone, where it receives about the same amount of stellar energy from its star as Mars does from the Sun," said Diana Kossakowski, from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, who co-authored the paper in Astronomy & Astrophysics. "If the planet has a dense atmosphere, which will take future studies to determine, it could trap enough heat to warm the planet and allow liquid water on its surface." Lisa Kaltenegger, a professor of astronomy at Cornell University who published a separate paper in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, suggests the planet could harbour life. "This is exciting, as this is humanity's first nearby super-Earth that could harbour life – uncovered with help from Tess, our small, mighty mission with a huge reach," she said. "With a thick atmosphere, the planet GJ 357 d could maintain liquid water on its surface like Earth and we could pick out signs of life with upcoming telescopes soon to be online."

GJ 357 d orbits its star every 55.7 days at a range of about 20% of Earth's distance from the sun, it is claimed. The three planets orbit a star known as GJ 357, an M-type dwarf, which is around 40% cooler than our own sun and about a third of its mass and size. Tess (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) – Nasatechnology used to discover exoplanets beyond our solar system – noticed the star dimming slightly every 3.9 days in February, a hint that planets were circulating around it. The nearest of the three planets, GJ 357 b, is around 22% larger than Earth, orbiting its star 11 times closer than Mercury does to the sun.

"We describe GJ 357 b as a 'hot Earth'," said Enric Palle, an astrophysicist at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands. "Although it cannot host life, it is noteworthy as the third-nearest transiting exoplanet known to date and one of the best rocky planets we have for measuring the composition of any atmosphere it may possess." The middle planet, GJ 357 c, has a mass at least 3.4 times Earth's, and orbits around its star every 9.1 days. Scientists are constantly scanning the skies to find any sign of another planet which may support life. </s> Nasa will look for signs of life from a relative nearby planet after it was spotted by a brand new space telescope.

The world – the first nearby super-earth spotted by the brand new Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (Tess) spacecraft – is one of three newly found exoplanets.

The planet is known as GJ 357 d, and orbits a star around 31 light years away. It is close enough to that star to be in the “habitable zone”.

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In this region, it is possible for liquid water to exist on the surface of a planet, although further research is needed to find out whether GJ 357 d’s atmosphere is dense and warm enough to host liquid water.

“GJ 357 d is located within the outer edge of its star’s habitable zone, where it receives about the same amount of stellar energy from its star as Mars does from the sun,” said Diana Kossakowski, from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, who co-authored the paper in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Shape Created with Sketch. Best Nasa pictures of the month - July 2019 Show all 10 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Best Nasa pictures of the month - July 2019 1/10 A total solar eclipse as seen from the US National Science Federation observatory in the Chilean Andes on 2 July NASA/Goddard/Rebecca Roth 2/10 A composite image of the Cygnus OB2 star cluster composed of pictures taken by the Isaac Newton Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope on July 24 NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Drake 3/10 The spacecraft Soyuz MS-13 is launched at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 20 NASA/Joel Kowsky 4/10 A copy of LIFE magazine from July 4 1969 signed by Michael Collins is seen onboard the Soyuz spacecraft NASA/Nick HAgue 5/10 The galaxy NGC 1156 which is said to resemble a cherry blossom tree. Captured by the Hubble Telescope on July 12 ESA/Hubble/NASA/R. Jansen 6/10 The spacecraft Soyuz MS-13 on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan ahead of launch on July 20 NASA/Joel Kowsky 7/10 Earth is seen in the background as a robotic arm from the International Space Station is positioned for training activities on July 12 NASA Johnson 8/10 The galaxy NGC 2985, a classic example of a spiral galaxy. Captured by the Hubble Telescope on July 22 ESA/Hubble/NASA/L. Ho 9/10 The sun rises over Earth as captured from the International Space Station on July 15 NASA Johnson 10/10 The Namibian port town of Walvis is captured from 262 miles above on the International Space Station NASA Johnson 1/10 A total solar eclipse as seen from the US National Science Federation observatory in the Chilean Andes on 2 July NASA/Goddard/Rebecca Roth 2/10 A composite image of the Cygnus OB2 star cluster composed of pictures taken by the Isaac Newton Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope on July 24 NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Drake 3/10 The spacecraft Soyuz MS-13 is launched at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 20 NASA/Joel Kowsky 4/10 A copy of LIFE magazine from July 4 1969 signed by Michael Collins is seen onboard the Soyuz spacecraft NASA/Nick HAgue 5/10 The galaxy NGC 1156 which is said to resemble a cherry blossom tree. Captured by the Hubble Telescope on July 12 ESA/Hubble/NASA/R. Jansen 6/10 The spacecraft Soyuz MS-13 on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan ahead of launch on July 20 NASA/Joel Kowsky 7/10 Earth is seen in the background as a robotic arm from the International Space Station is positioned for training activities on July 12 NASA Johnson 8/10 The galaxy NGC 2985, a classic example of a spiral galaxy. Captured by the Hubble Telescope on July 22 ESA/Hubble/NASA/L. Ho 9/10 The sun rises over Earth as captured from the International Space Station on July 15 NASA Johnson 10/10 The Namibian port town of Walvis is captured from 262 miles above on the International Space Station NASA Johnson

“If the planet has a dense atmosphere, which will take future studies to determine, it could trap enough heat to warm the planet and allow liquid water on its surface.”

Lisa Kaltenegger, a professor of astronomy at Cornell University who published a separate paper in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, suggests the planet could harbour life.

“This is exciting, as this is humanity’s first nearby super-earth that could harbour life – uncovered with help from Tess, our small, mighty mission with a huge reach,” she said.

“With a thick atmosphere, the planet GJ 357 d could maintain liquid water on its surface like Earth and we could pick out signs of life with upcoming telescopes soon to be online.”

GJ 357 d orbits its star every 55.7 days at a range of about 20 per cent of Earth’s distance from the sun, it is claimed.

The three planets orbit a star known as GJ 357, an M-type dwarf, which is around 40 per cent cooler than our own sun and about a third of its mass and size.

Tess – Nasa technology used to discover exoplanets beyond our solar system – noticed the star dimming slightly every 3.9 days in February, a hint that planets were circulating around it.

The nearest of the three planets, GJ 357 b, is around 22 per cent larger than Earth, orbiting its star 11 times closer than Mercury does to the sun.

“We describe GJ 357 b as a ‘hot earth’,” said Enric Palle, an astrophysicist at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands.

“Although it cannot host life, it is noteworthy as the third-nearest transiting exoplanet known to date and one of the best rocky planets we have for measuring the composition of any atmosphere it may possess.”

The middle planet, GJ 357 c, has a mass at least 3.4 times Earth’s, and orbits around its star every 9.1 days.

Additional reporting by Press Association
Astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy announce the discovery of red dwarf star GJ 357 and its three confirmed exoplanets in the Hydra constellation, one of which (GJ 357 d) is highly likely to be a super-Earth planet located in the system's circumstellar habitable zone where life can exist. The discovery was made using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).