'The Independent' reports that citizen scientists and astronomers have detected a new planet that is 379 light-years away.
It has been named TOI-2180 b.
The planet, which is about the size of Jupiter but thought to be more dense, takes 261 days to orbit its star. Its temperature is about 76 degrees Celsius.
"With this new discovery, we are … pushing the limits of the kinds of planets we can extract from TESS [Nasa’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite] observations." Diana Dragomir, assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, via 'The Independent'
"TESS was not specifically designed to find such long-orbit exoplanets, but our team, with the help of citizen scientists, are digging out these rare gems nonetheless." Diana Dragomir, assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, via 'The Independent'.
'The Independent' reports that the effort put forth by citizen scientists, who inspect data manually using a program called LcTools, is often more accurate than algorithms written to perform the same task.
"This is one area where humans are still beating code." Dr. Dalba, astronomer at University of California, Riverside, via 'The Independent'