A Warm Jupiter: A Newfound Exoplanet Bears a Resemblance to the Solar System's Own Worlds
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 13:35
in Astronomy & Space
A French spacecraft designed to discover new worlds beyond our solar system has made one of its most significant finds yet--a planet that looks like a cousin to those in our own celestial backyard. COROT 9 b, named by astronomical convention for the instrument that discovered it, the COROT (for COnvection, ROtation and planetary Transits) satellite , is less massive than Jupiter and orbits a star, called COROT 9, at about the same distance Mercury orbits the sun. The new world is of fairly average size, but it is the most temperate exoplanet yet whose properties are well known in orbit around a sunlike star. [More]