A newly discovered nearby exoplanet has turned out to be an interesting one indeed : Not only is it a relatively rare kind of super-Earth, it may also be a water world, covered in a deep ocean! Maybe . But further observations, including with JWST, could answer a lot of questions. The planet is called TOI-1452b , orbiting the star TOI-1452. “TOI” means TESS Object of Interest ; which in turn means a star observed by TESS — the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite — that may have a planet. TESS stares at hundreds of thousands of stars over many days looking for exoplanets , alien worlds orbiting those stars. If a planet’s orbit is seen edge-on, then once per orbit it blocks a fraction of its host star’s light when it passes directly in front of it —  an event called a transit . If we know the star’s size then the planet size can be measured by how deep the dip is. TOI-1452 is an M-type red dwarf , a star about ¼ the Sun’s mass and radius.…