New Planet Discovered that is Larger Than Jupiter
The newly discovered planet is thought to be larger than Jupiter and it is moving around a far away star. Besides being a little bit bigger than Jupiter, the new planet, which is being called HAT-P-2b, is 8 times more massive than Jupiter. The researchers have also said that the new planet is 1.18 times brighter than our solar systems gas giant.
The path in which the planet revolves around its sun is an extreme oval. The main component of the planet is thought to be hydrogen. The star that is the sun for the new planet is called HD 147506 and it's located 440 light years from Earth. The planets sun is part of the Hercules constellation.
Astronomers investigating HAT-P-2b are saying they have found "the heavyweight champion of extrasolar planets."
Speaking about the new planet, Gaspar Bakos, an astronomer, said, "This planet is so unusual that at first we thought it was a false alarm-something that appeared to be a planet but wasn't. But we eliminated every other possibility, so we knew we had a really weird planet."
The report about the findings by the telescopes used on the Corot mission have just been published in the Astrophysical Journal.
The gas giant, HAT-P-2b takes only 1 day and 12 hours to make a full trip around its sun. The orbit of the planet is very extreme. On one side of the oval route it comes very close to its sun, 3.1 million miles from it, and on the other side it goes quit far out at 9.6 million miles.
This orbit is thought to be extremely strange in comparison to other extrasolar planets. All of the other extrasolar planets currently known, have circular orbits whereas as the orbit of HAT-P-2b is an oval. The reason for this unusual orbit is till under investigation but it is thought that the planet my have another gravitational force influencing it besides its sun.
To give the new planet's orbit some perspective take a look at planet Earth. Earth makes its trip around the sun at a distance of 93 million miles. If Earth had an orbit similar to HAT-P-2b its path would go as far in as Mercury and as far out as Mars.
One of the writers of the report, Robert Noyes, said, "HAT-P-2b is hot, but it's not a Jupiter." "Previous planets found via the transit method have been billed as 'hot Jupiters'. It's much denser than a Jupiter-like planet, in fact, it is as dense as Earth even though it's mostly made of hydrogen."
Corot is on a 2 and a half-year mission. During this time its primary goal will be to find other planets that could potentially support life. It is expected to observe over 100,000 different stars.
Sources:
http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_21278520.shtml
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,269691,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6611557.stm
Published by Siun Griffin
I have been a freelance writer for several years. I enjoy writing about a variety of topics, particularly the environment, animals, entertainment, and travel. However, I don't limit myself to those topics, a... View profile
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7 Comments
Post a Commentthat is sweet and french fries
Please give me more details on the newly discovered planets and their location, size, etc.
WOW! I love it. Great article.
its not in our solar system so we still hav 8 planets u dumarse
cool dude
This planet is not in our solar system, so we are indeed stuck with 8 planets, but who's counting
Oh good, after we dropped Pluto all the textbooks and films would have to be revised from 9 to 8 planets. Hats off to HAT - now we can go back to 9 planets. WHEW.