TESS, the Transitioning Exoplanet Survey, has identified at least eight exoplanets and discovered over 300 candidates eight months after its launch.
The spacecraft which replaced Kepler last year began its two-year scientific mission to survey the night sky for Earth-like planets outside of the solar system in July.
One of its latest discoveries is a bizarre world that has at least 23 times the mass of Earth. Details of the newfound exoplanet were unveiled on Jan. 7 at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, Washington.
"This is the most extreme system with this type of architecture," stated Xu Chelsea Huang, one of the scientists who is working behind the project at MIT. "We don't know how that could form."
The planet in question is orbiting a dwarf star known as HD 21749 which is located 53 light-years away from Earth. According to scientists, the planet has an outstretched orbit and zips around its star every 36 days.
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