NASA finds strange alien planet hidden away from our solar system

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NASA has found a strange alien planet sitting outside our solar system.

The world is cool and small: two characteristics that make it very strange indeed for scientists to find.

The small planet known as HD 21749b is the third planet to be found by TESS, NASA's new planet-hunting telescope. It revolves around its star in a long orbit, taking a relatively slow 36 days.

Despite this proximity, it's pretty cool around 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

As such, it could be a very important way for scientists to find out about these relatively small and temperate worlds.

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1/30 Land of the ISS

From the International Space Station, flight engineer Terry W. Virts of Expedition 42 took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and the United States Gulf Coast at sunset.

Nasa

2/30 Icy slopes of Mars

This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted ravines on a hillside facing south inside a crater. The image was taken by NASA's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter

Nasa

3/30 Orion capsule splashes down

Orion's capsule gushed into space before returning a few hours later – having proved that it can be used one day to transport humans to Mars.

Nasa

4/30 The launch of the Soyuz TMA-15M rocket

The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, November 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. He also took caviar, ready for the inhabitants of the satellite to celebrate the holidays

Nasa

5/30 Space Yellowstone

NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone through his Twitter account.

Nasa

6/30 Black Hole Friday

NASA celebrated Black Friday staring into space – sharing photos of black holes

Nasa

7/30 NuSTAR

X-rays drip from the sun in this image, showing observations of NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, superimposed on a photo taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

Nasa

8/30 Saturn

This near infrared colored image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, outside a lake of hydrocarbons called Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan

Nasa

9/30 Words aside

Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by the moon's standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers in diameter) is elongated and irregularly shaped. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers in diameter), a "medium-sized" moon, formed in a sphere due to the self-imposed gravity by its highest mass

Nasa

10/30 Solar explosion

A solar flare of class X1.6 flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken on September 10, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

Nasa

11/30 Solar explosion

An image of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000-mile solar filament ripping the solar corona in September 2013

Nasa

12/30 Cassiopeia A c

A fake colored image of Cassiopeia A, made up of data from the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory

Nasa

13/30 Great Magellanic Cloud Galaxy

An image of the Great Magellanic Cloud Galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space like this are where new stars are born of a mixture of elements and cosmic dust

Nasa

14/30 Spirit of Mars Rover

NASA's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture of Spirit, as communication problems began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack

Nasa

15/30 Morning dawn from space station

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly captures this photograph of the green lights of the dawn of the International Space Station

16/30 Launching History – Making the STS-41G Mission in 1984

The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. In this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first US woman to make a space walk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The seven-person crew was the largest to fly in a spacecraft at the time, and the STS-41G was the first flight to include two astronauts

17/30 A new perspective on an extraordinary cluster of galaxies

Clusters of galaxies are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerates of galaxies, hot gas and dark matter and represent the largest structures of the Universe united by gravity

18/30 Remnant Supernova Nebula Veil

The NASA Hubble Space Telescope has revealed in striking detail a small section of the Veil Nebula – expanding the remains of a massive star that exploded some 8,000 years ago

19/30 Hubble sees a galactic sunflower

The arrangement of the spiral arms in the Messier 63 galaxy, seen here in an image of the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, recalls the pattern in the center of a sunflower

20/30 A Cosmic Hubble Couple

The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 – more commonly known as WR 124 – and the nebula M1-67 surrounding it

21/30 Image of Pluto

Four images from the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced color vision of Pluto

22/30 Fresh crater near the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars

The HiRISE camera, aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, has acquired this close-up image of a "fresh" impact crater (on a geological scale, though quite ancient on a human scale) in the Sirenum Fossae region on Mars. This impact crater seems relatively recent as it has a pointed rim and a well preserved ejecta

23/30 Observations of the Earth of Gemini IV in 1965

This photograph of the Strait of Florida and the Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit n. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including Earth time and terrain photography, for the remainder of their four-day mission after Ed White's historic space walk on June 3.

24/30 NASA celebrates 50 years of space walk

For 50 years, NASA has "adapted" to the space walk. In this 1984 photo of the first free spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" test of a nitrogen-powered backpack device called the Maneuvered Drive Unit (MMU)

25/30 Hubble lurks the most populous place in the Milky Way

This image from the NASA Hubble Space Telescope features the Arcs Cluster, the densest stellar cluster in the Milky Way

26/30 The vision of an astronaut from space

NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo of the International Space Station on September 2, 2014

27/30 Giant Landform on Mars

On Mars, we can see four classes of sandy shapes formed by the wind, or eolytic forms: ripples, transverse winding chains, dunes and what is called "draa".

28/30 Expedition 39 Landing

A sokol helmet can be seen against the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule window shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition Command 39 Koichi Wakata of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos and Engineer of Flight Rick Mastracchio from NASA near the city of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan

29/30 Large red spot of Jupiter seen by Voyager I

30/30 Chandra observatory sees a heart in the dark

1/30 Land of the ISS

From the International Space Station, flight engineer Terry W. Virts of Expedition 42 took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and the United States Gulf Coast at sunset.

Nasa

2/30 Icy slopes of Mars

This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted ravines on a hillside facing south inside a crater. The image was taken by NASA's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter

Nasa

3/30 Orion capsule splashes down

Orion's capsule gushed into space before returning a few hours later – having proved that it can be used one day to transport humans to Mars.

Nasa

4/30 The launch of the Soyuz TMA-15M rocket

The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, November 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. He also took caviar, ready for the inhabitants of the satellite to celebrate the holidays

Nasa

5/30 Space Yellowstone

NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone through his Twitter account.

Nasa

6/30 Black Hole Friday

NASA celebrated Black Friday staring into space – sharing photos of black holes

Nasa

7/30 NuSTAR

X-rays drip from the sun in this image, showing observations of NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, superimposed on a photo taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

Nasa

8/30 Saturn

This near infrared colored image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, outside a lake of hydrocarbons called Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan

Nasa

9/30 Words aside

Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by the moon's standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers in diameter) is elongated and irregularly shaped. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers in diameter), a "medium-sized" moon, formed in a sphere due to the self-imposed gravity by its highest mass

Nasa

10/30 Solar explosion

A solar flare of class X1.6 flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken on September 10, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

Nasa

11/30 Solar explosion

An image of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000-mile solar filament ripping the solar corona in September 2013

Nasa

12/30 Cassiopeia A c

A fake colored image of Cassiopeia A, made up of data from the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory

Nasa

13/30 Great Magellanic Cloud Galaxy

An image of the Great Magellanic Cloud Galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space like this are where new stars are born of a mixture of elements and cosmic dust

Nasa

14/30 Spirit of Mars Rover

NASA's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture of Spirit, as communication problems began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack

Nasa

15/30 Morning dawn from space station

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly captures this photograph of the green lights of the dawn of the International Space Station

16/30 Launching History – Making the STS-41G Mission in 1984

The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. In this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first US woman to make a space walk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The seven-person crew was the largest to fly in a spacecraft at the time, and the STS-41G was the first flight to include two astronauts

17/30 A new perspective on an extraordinary cluster of galaxies

Clusters of galaxies are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerates of galaxies, hot gas and dark matter and represent the largest structures of the Universe united by gravity

18/30 Remnant Supernova Nebula Veil

The NASA Hubble Space Telescope has revealed in striking detail a small section of the Veil Nebula – expanding the remains of a massive star that exploded some 8,000 years ago

19/30 Hubble sees a galactic sunflower

The arrangement of the spiral arms in the Messier 63 galaxy, seen here in an image of the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, recalls the pattern in the center of a sunflower

20/30 A Cosmic Hubble Couple

The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 – more commonly known as WR 124 – and the nebula M1-67 surrounding it

21/30 Image of Pluto

Four images from the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced color vision of Pluto

22/30 Fresh crater near the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars

The HiRISE camera, aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, has acquired this close-up image of a "fresh" impact crater (on a geological scale, though quite ancient on a human scale) in the Sirenum Fossae region on Mars. This impact crater seems relatively recent as it has a pointed rim and a well preserved ejecta

23/30 Observations of the Earth of Gemini IV in 1965

This photograph of the Strait of Florida and the Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit n. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including Earth time and terrain photography, for the remainder of their four-day mission after Ed White's historic space walk on June 3.

24/30 NASA celebrates 50 years of space walk

For 50 years, NASA has "adapted" to the space walk. In this 1984 photo of the first free spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" test of a nitrogen-powered backpack device called the Maneuvered Drive Unit (MMU)

25/30 Hubble lurks the most populous place in the Milky Way

This image from the NASA Hubble Space Telescope features the Arcs Cluster, the densest stellar cluster in the Milky Way

26/30 The vision of an astronaut from space

NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo of the International Space Station on September 2, 2014

27/30 Giant Landform on Mars

On Mars, we can see four classes of sandy shapes formed by the wind, or eolytic forms: ripples, transverse winding chains, dunes and what is called "draa".

28/30 Expedition 39 Landing

A sokol helmet can be seen against the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule window shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition Command 39 Koichi Wakata of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos and Engineer of Flight Rick Mastracchio from NASA near the city of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan

29/30 Large red spot of Jupiter seen by Voyager I

30/30 Chandra observatory sees a heart in the dark

"It's the coolest planet we know around such a bright star," says Diana Dragomir, a postdoc at the Kavli Institute of Astrophysics and Space Research at MIT who led the new discovery.

"We know a lot about atmospheres of hot planets, but since it is very difficult to find small planets that orbit farther from their stars and therefore are cooler, we can not learn much about these smaller, colder planets. But here we were lucky and we took this one, and now we can study it in more detail. "

Even though it is called small by the scientists who found it, the world is still huge compared to us: it is about three times our size and 23 times more massive. This puts it in the category of a "sub-Neptune", and means that it would be the first planets about the size of Earth to be found by TESS.

But it's unlikely to look much like our own planet. It is probably made of gas like Neptune or Uranus, although something much denser than its atmospheres.

"We think this planet would not be as gaseous as Neptune or Uranus, which are mostly hydrogen and very swollen," says Dragomir. "The planet probably has a water density or a thick atmosphere."

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