L 98-59b, L 98-59c and L 98-59d

L 98-59b, L 98-59c and L 98-59d are new planets discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

Features of the New Planets

• While L 98-59b is around 80% Earth’s size, L 98-59c and L 98-59d are around 1.4 and 1.6 times the Earth’s size respectively.
• L 98-59 is the host star of the three planets. It is about one-third the mass of the Sun and lies about 35 light-years away.
• L 98-59b is the tiniest planet to be discovered by the TESS.

The preliminary studies have revealed the sizes of the planets. Further study with other telescopes is required to determine if they have atmospheres and, if so, which gases are present.

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is NASA’s mission to find exoplanets (planets outside the Solar System) that periodically block part of the light from their host stars, events called transits.

Under the mission, TESS will survey 200,000 of the brightest stars near the sun to search for transiting exoplanets.

The objective of the mission is to catalog thousands of planet candidates and vastly increase the current number of known exoplanets.