Astronomers Find Biggest Super-Puff Planets Yet That Are Lighter Than Cotton Candy (apnews.com) 9
Astronomers have discovered two Jupiter-sized exoplanets with densities lower than cotton candy, making them the lightest known worlds of their size. The rare "super-puffs," located about 1,110 light-years away, are likely composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, with follow-up observations by the James Webb Space Telescope expected to probe their atmospheres. The Associated Press reports: [University of Oxford's George Dransfield] suspects these fluffy, wispy worlds are probably white or blue, depending on whether the skies there are cloudy -- no shades of cotton-candy pink. The planets are probably mostly hydrogen and helium, although it will take follow-up observations by NASA's Webb Space Telescope to confirm their chemical makeup.
Detected by NASA's Tess satellite over the past decade, these two especially puffy-puffs orbit a star in the southern constellation Volans, known as the flying fish. The researchers studied the planets' orbits using telescopes on Earth to determine their density, from 1,110 light-years away. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (9.7 trillion kilometers). Jupiter, by comparison, is as much as 35 times denser than these two lightweights.
Considered rare in the cosmos, super-puffs are thought to form around the disk of gas and dust around a newborn star where there is more gas than dust. They shed much of the material over time, stripping down even more. NASA's tally of worlds outside our solar system currently stands at nearly 6,300 confirmed. Fewer than 40 are super-puffs, according to Dransfield. The findings have been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Detected by NASA's Tess satellite over the past decade, these two especially puffy-puffs orbit a star in the southern constellation Volans, known as the flying fish. The researchers studied the planets' orbits using telescopes on Earth to determine their density, from 1,110 light-years away. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (9.7 trillion kilometers). Jupiter, by comparison, is as much as 35 times denser than these two lightweights.
Considered rare in the cosmos, super-puffs are thought to form around the disk of gas and dust around a newborn star where there is more gas than dust. They shed much of the material over time, stripping down even more. NASA's tally of worlds outside our solar system currently stands at nearly 6,300 confirmed. Fewer than 40 are super-puffs, according to Dransfield. The findings have been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Super-Puffs? (Score:4, Funny)
Do they live by the super-sea, and frolic in the autumn mist in the land of super-honalee?
Re: (Score:3)
So yeah, they do live by the super-sea and frolic in the autumn mist. I draw the line at super-honalee though. That's batshit crazy!
I create super puffs every day on the loo (Score:2)
They are also very local but not orbiting round a star.
Maybe (Score:2)
I Have to ask (Score:2)
What flavour is it?
I don't understand how this is surprising (Score:4, Interesting)
Wouldn't this be a normal stage on the process of condensation from "cloud of particulates" into a solar system? If this cloud is spinning and will ultimately segregate into distinct planets, presumably at some point in that process those protoplanetary bodies are reasonably discrete but not yet condensed. What am I missing?
Fwiw Jupiter is the largest a body can be before it becomes a brown dwarf; that is, adding mass doesn't increase the diameter any longer it just increases in density due to electron degeneracy.
hmm (Score:2)