Three newly discovered worlds are among the smallest and nearest we’ve ever detected.
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS — a super-powerful orbiting telescope designed to hunt for alien worlds — found the planets orbiting a star just 73 light-years away.
One is a rocky “super-Earth” that’s more massive than our home planet but lighter than giants like Neptune. The other two are icy “sub-Neptunes” that are about half the size of Neptune.