my recent articles |
| Puffy planet could float on water |
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16 February 2007, for Nature Network Boston Astronomers call it HAT-P-1b, but maybe we should call it Puff Daddy. A new study has spotted the puffiest planet anywhere, orbiting a star in another solar system. The discovery, reported this week in the Astrophysical Journal, is the first discovery from an ongoing hunt by a set of six telescopes around the world. The broad survey is searching the sky for so-called transiting exoplanets—planets outside our solar system that reveal themselves by passing in front of the star they orbit, obstructing its light. This is the only way that researchers can get an accurate reading of the planet’s mass and size. The new study, led Gaspar Bakos at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, found that HAT-P-1b is a third larger in diameter than Jupiter, our solar system’s largest planet. But it’s only half of Jupiter’s mass, resulting in a density close to that of cork. Researchers had found only one planet nearly as puffy as HAT-P-1b before, and thought it would be unique. But now with two of them—out of only 11 transiting exoplanets found so far—they may not be so rare after all, Bakos and colleagues say. |