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☆ Unusual world offers astronomers a glimpse into how planets become ‘hot Jupiters’
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-17 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

The star is one of a binary pair, so the planet orbits the primary star, while the primary star orbits a secondary star. While Jupiter takes 4,000 Earth days to complete one orbit around the sun, hot Jupiters complete one orbit every few days. Astronomers use “eccentric” to refer to the shape of a planet’s orbit on a scale from zero to 1. “It’s a pretty extreme process in that the changes to the planet’s orbit are massive,” Millholland said. Discovering a second hot Jupiter precursor is helping astronomers to confirm the idea that high-mass gas giants transform into hot Jupiters as they migrate from eccentric to circular orbits, the researchers said.

Persons: —, ”, Arvind Gupta, NOIRLab, Gupta, Suvrath Mahadevan, Verne, Willaman, Jason Wright, ” Wright, ” Gupta, Sarah Millholland, “, ” Millholland, Wright, James Webb Organizations: CNN —, Penn State, Astronomy, Mercury, NASA, Massachusetts Institute, Technology’s Kavli, for Astrophysics, Space Research, chrysalis Locations: Kitt, Arizona

☆ Giant oddball planet has the density of fluffy cotton candy, study finds
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-16 | by ( Leah Asmelash | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

An international coalition of astronomers has newly discovered an unusual planet, dubbed WASP-193b, that’s about 50% bigger than Jupiter and somehow still the second lightest planet ever found. Because of how small the mass signal was, it took the team four years to gather data and calculate WASP-193b’s mass, Barkaoui explained. Eventually the team discovered the planet’s mass is a measly 14% that of Jupiter, despite being so much bigger. But a bigger size means a bigger “extended atmosphere,” said study coauthor Julien de Wit, an associate professor of planetary science at MIT. “WASP-193b is an outlier of all planets discovered to date,” he said.

Persons: puffy, Kepler, Jupiters, Khalid Barkaoui, James Webb, ”, Barkaoui, Francisco Pozuelos, Julien de Wit, Wit, Stone, puffy Jupiters, it’s Organizations: CNN, James Webb Space Telescope, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, WASP, Spain’s Institute of Astrophysics, MIT Locations: Andalucia

☆ Quartz crystals detected swirling in atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-17b
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-17 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have for the first time detected tiny quartz crystals containing silica — a common mineral on Earth — within the atmosphere of a blazing hot exoplanet. An artist's concept depicts what the exoplanet WASP-17b could look like. What the quartz crystals reveal about WASP-17bWasp-17b takes 3.7 Earth days to complete one orbit around its star. Webb detected quartz crystals in the atmosphere of WASP-17b. While the clouds can drift around the planet, they likely vaporize on the hot day side, which could send the quartz particles swirling.

Persons: James Webb, Ralf Crawford, “, ”, David Grant, Hannah Wakeford, ” Grant, Wakeford Organizations: CNN —, NASA, ESA, CSA, University of Bristol, WASP, Minerals, “ WASP

☆ Titanium Clouds Engulf This Ultrahot Neptune-like Planet
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-27 | by ( Katrina Miller | More About Katrina Miller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Astronomers have come across the shiniest planet ever found, a mere 265 light years from our solar system. Shrouded by thick metallic clouds, this world’s temperature reaches a blistering 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and it quite likely rains scorching-hot drops of titanium. The find, named LTT 9779 b, was described in a paper published this month in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Nearly five times as big as Earth, it’s one of the few ultrahot, gaseous exoplanets of this size that scientists have discovered. But LTT 9779 b, which sprints around its star once every 19 hours, is midsize — making it one of four or five planets in the so-called Neptune desert, and the only one with an intact atmosphere.

Persons: ”, James Jenkins Organizations: Astrophysics, Diego Portales University, NASA’s Locations: Chile

☆ NASA’s new telescope could spot thousands of exoplanets and hundreds of Earth-size rogue planets
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-27 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

CNN —When NASA’s next-generation space observatory launches in a few years, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will expand the search for exoplanets as well as rogue planets, or worlds that travel through space without orbiting stars. Understanding these rogue planets could shed more light on the formation, evolution and disruption of planetary systems. This illustration shows what the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will look like in orbit. But rogue planets are likely much smaller. Telescopes like Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope have enabled astronomers to observe large, glowing gas giant exoplanets called hot Jupiters.

Persons: NASA’s, Nancy Grace, Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's, —, ”, David Bennett, Microlensing, Takahiro Sumi, “, Naoki Koshimoto, ” Sumi, Hubble, Vanessa Bailey, Roman’s, James Webb, Bailey, coronagraph, “ It’s, ” Bailey Organizations: CNN, Hubble, NASA's Goddard Space, Mount John University Observatory, Goddard Space Flight, Osaka University, Engineers, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Locations: New, Greenbelt , Maryland, Pasadena , California, Webb

☆ Rare ‘Trojan’ world may share the same orbit as another planet
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-19 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —Astronomers may have found a rare “sibling” that shares the same orbit of a Jupiter-like planet around a young star. Two Jupiter-like planets, known as PDS 70b and PDS 70c, are already known to orbit the star. Evidence for Trojans beyond our solar system — specifically Trojan planets — has been sparse until now. The signal suggested a cloud of debris with a mass of about twice that of our moon, which could be a Trojan planet or a planet in formation. A cloud of debris (circled by a yellow dotted line) may be a newly forming planet in the same orbit as the planet PDS 70b.

Persons: ”, Olga Balsalobre, Lucy, “ Exotrojans, Jorge Lillo, Itziar De Gregorio, Monsalvo, “, Ruza, ALMA Organizations: CNN —, Astrophysics, Madrid’s, Astrobiology, IAU, Southern, Science, NASA Locations: ALMA, Chile

☆ Alien planet with metallic clouds resembles 'a giant mirror in space'
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-10 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Venus, the brightest object in Earth's night sky besides the moon, is our solar system's most reflective object, enrobed in toxic sulfuric acid clouds. An atmosphere with water-based clouds, as on Earth, would have been blown away by solar radiation long ago. But they believe its clouds are metallic, a combination of titanium and silicate - the stuff that makes up most of the rocks in Earth's crust. "We even think that the clouds could condense into droplets, and have titanium rain falling in parts of the atmosphere," Jenkins said. More than 5,000 planets beyond our solar system - called exoplanets - have been discovered, many with traits vastly different than our solar system's eight planets.

Persons: James Jenkins, Jenkins, Sergio Hoyer, Vivien Parmentier, Parmentier, James Webb, Will Dunham, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: Diego Portales University, Center, Astrophysics, Associated Technologies, Marseille Astrophysics, Telescope, Thomson Locations: Chile, Marseille, France

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