Researchers in Canada have discovered an exoplanet—a planet orbiting another star—just 100 light-years from Earth that’s probably covered in water.
TOI-1452 b orbits one of two small stars in a binary system located in the constellation of Draco “the dragon.” That’s the northern sky as seen from Earth, close to the Big Dipper.
Published today in The Astronomical Journal, the study reveals a world that’s slightly greater in size and mass than Earth and is in the “habitable zone” of its star between the frost line and the “boil zone” where liquid water can exist.
The authors believe it could be an “ocean planet,” a planet completely covered by a thick layer of water. They compare it to Jupiter’s moons Ganymede and Callisto and Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus, all of which are suspected to have subsurface global oceans.