Astronomers recently discovered an exoplanet that could be the first water-covered planet.

TOI-1452 b is a slightly larger and more massive exoplanet than Earth about 100 light-years from our home in the constellation Draco. Inn Paper Posted on Wednesday Journal of AstronomyUniversity of Montreal researchers say the planet’s mass suggests it is less dense than rock but denser than gas — a sign of global oceans.

“TOI-1452 b is one of the best candidates for ocean planets we’ve ever found,” said a PhD student in astronomy at the University of Montreal. Charles Kedio He said in a statement. Its radius and mass indicate a much lower density than would be expected for a metal-rock planet like Earth.

TOI-1452 b was first brought to the attention of astronomers by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS spacecraft, which studies distant stars for signs of light from a transiting exoplanet. Tess’s data suggest the existence of exoplanets, but her observations are inconclusive.

The star TOI-1452 b orbits part of a binary star system, and TESS does not have the ability to resolve individual stars in this system. However, the university’s Mont-Magnetic Observatory (OMM), with new analytical methods, was able to confirm the existence of TOI-1452 b.

“The OMM played a key role in confirming the nature of this signal and calculating the planet’s radius,” Caddio said. “This was not a routine test. We had to confirm that the signal detected by TESS was caused by an exoplanet orbiting TOI-1452, the two largest stars in the binary system.

An instrument mounted on the Canadian, French and Hawaiian telescopes in Hawaii then measured the mass of the planet.

Unlike Earth, a mostly rocky and mineralized planet that covers 70% of its surface in water, TOI-1452 b appears to be mostly, but not entirely, water, with 30% of its mass coming from liquid. It is a type of deep global ocean closer to the deep waters thought to lie beneath the ice sheets of Saturn’s moon Enceladus than Earth’s oceans; Water makes up less than 1% of our planet’s mass.

Exoplanets are located outside our solar system.

It is still uncertain whether TOI-1452 b is an oceanic world and the possibility of finding alien life in its waters, but researchers say the James Webb Space Telescope may soon be able to solve this strange mystery. New water world.