- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s(NASA) Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite(TESS) has discovered the smallest planet called L 98-59b.
- The planet is between the sizes of Mars and Earth orbiting a bright,cool, nearby stars.It is the tiniest of Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) finds so far.
- L 98-59b is around 80% of Earth’s size and about 10% smaller than the previous smallest planet discovered by TESS.
- The two other planets in the system namely L 98-59c and L 98-59d are around 1.4 and 1.6 times Earth’s size respectively.
- Further,the L 98-59b is a record for TESS but even smaller planets have been discovered in data collected by NASA’s Kepler satellite including Kepler-37b which is only 20% larger than the Moon.
- NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite(TESS) is an all-sky survey mission that seeks to discover exoplanets around nearby bright stars. It was launched in April 2018,aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
L 98-59b: A new planet discovered by NASA mission
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