- NASA’s unmanned Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) space telescope has discovered its Earth-sized exoplanet, called HD 21749c. Exoplanet is a planet which orbits a star outside the solar system.
- The exoplanet orbits its parent star HD 21749, which is 52 light years away from Earth. It is located in the constellation of Reticulum. Earth-sized HD 21749c circles its parent star once every 7.8 days.
- TESS has also discovered a warm sub-Neptune-sized world, called HD 21749b, in the same system. HD 21749b has about 23 times Earth’s mass and a radius of about 2.7 times Earth’s. It takes about 36 days to orbit around the parent star.
- NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite 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.
