NASA Discovers Super-Earth TOI-1846 b Emitting Repeated Signal

NASA has discovered a super-Earth exoplanet named TOI-1846 b located 154 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, orbiting a small, cool red dwarf star every four days. The planet is almost twice the size and about four times the mass of Earth, placing it in the rare 'radius gap' category between rocky planets and gas giants, with a density suggesting a solid rocky core, a dense ice layer, and possibly a thin atmosphere or shallow ocean. Despite the planet's estimated high surface temperature of around 600°F, scientists speculate that water could exist, especially on the cooler, tidally locked side that always faces away from its star. The unusual repeated dimming signal, first observed by NASA's TESS space telescope in March each year, helped confirm the planet's existence through combined space and ground-based observations by a team led by Abderahmane Soubkiou at the Oukaimeden Observatory. This discovery highlights the potential for studying exoplanets that might hold clues about life beyond Earth, although the extreme temperatures make alien life unlikely on TOI-1846 b. NASA's TESS mission continues to be instrumental in identifying such distant worlds by detecting their transit events across their stars.