Finding water on another planet can only be exhilarating for astronomers. It’s the first sign that another space object could be habitable. It’s completely unrealistic to believe that humanity can establish a colony on another planet in the near future. But that doesn’t mean that life in some forms, perhaps unknown to us, cannot evolve on another planet.
It may also be the case for the exoplanet known as TOI-674 b, which is located 150 light-years away. We’re talking about a so-called Super Neptune that orbits a red-dwarf star.
Water vapor is detected on TOI-674 b
Water can come in three different states: liquid, solid, and gas (vapor). As for our Super Neptune, scientists discovered water on it in the form of vapor, according to NASA.
A partnership between astronomers in charge of the Hubble Space Telescope and those of TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) managed to uncover the discovery.
NASA describes the exoplanet as follows:
TOI-674 b is a Neptune-like exoplanet that orbits an M-type star. Its mass is 23.6 Earths, it takes 2 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.025 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2021.
Discovering another exoplanet is not something very humdrum, whether you believe it or not. About three decades ago, astronomers weren’t sure that exoplanets even existed, meaning planets present in other solar systems. Meanwhile, they’ve discovered more than 4,000 of these cosmic objects.
The first exoplanet was discovered in 1992. Most of the exoplanets found were present in our own Milky Way galaxy and less than 3,000 light-years away from Earth. But there are also exoplanets discovered in other galaxies, and one of them is M51-ULS-1b, the exoplanet located at a staggering distance of 28 million light-years away from Earth.
