science

Astronomers have discovered 85 possible planets outside our solar system with temperatures potentially cool enough to sustain life.

These exoplanet candidates are similar in size to Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune, and were discovered using data from Nasa’s Transitioning Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

TESS enables scientists to observe dips in the brightness of stars, known as transits, caused by objects passing in front of them.

Typically, at least three transits need to be seen to discover an exoplanet in this way, in order to determine how long they take to orbit their star.