Posted on 05/06/2007 12:40:35 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have announced that they have found the most massive known transiting extrasolar planet. The gas giant planet, called HAT-P-2b, contains more than eight times the mass of Jupiter, the biggest planet in our solar system. Its powerful gravity squashes it into a ball only slightly larger than Jupiter.
HAT-P-2b shows other unusual characteristics. It has an extremely oval orbit that brings it as close as 3.1 million miles from its star before swinging three times farther out, to a distance of 9.6 million miles. If Earth's orbit were as elliptical, we would loop from almost reaching Mercury out to almost reaching Mars. Because of its orbit, HAT-P-2b gets enormously heated up when it passes close to the star, then cools off as it loops out again. Although it has a very short orbital period of only 5.63 days, this is the longest period planet known that transits, or crosses in front of, its host star.
(Excerpt) Read more at astrobio.net ...
In September of 2006, HATNet found its first exosolar planet, HAT-P-1. Unlike the recently discovered and super-dense HAT-P-2b, HAT-P-1 has a radius of about 1.38 Jupiter's but contains only half of Jupiter's mass. Credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA) The Submillimeter Array site of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii, is one of the six small, wide-field "HAT" telescopes that make up HATNet. Credit: HATNet
Astronomers find distant, fluffy planet - dubbed HAT-P-1
AP on Yahoo | 9/14/06 | AP
Posted on 09/14/2006 12:59:07 PM EDT by NormsRevenge
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At what mass would a gas giant planet ignite and become a star?
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