Yet another new discovery of a planet has been made after its 14 ‘perhaps’ smaller siblings are spotted beyond our solar system. Unlike the other gas giants of the size of the Jupiter, this new very hot world is found to be bigger than Jupiter.
The newly found body — named Corot-exo-1b — can be found 1,500 light-years away in the Monoceros constellation.
Congratulations to the French-led Corot mission for spying its first planet passing in front of a far-off star. Launched on 27 December last year, the spacecraft is the first to hunt for Earth-like planets in space. The Corot monitors stars for tiny dips in brightness resulting from objects that transit their faces to hunt for planets.
Told to BBC News, Dr Suzanne Aigrain, a co-investigator on the mission and an exoplanet expert from the University of Exeter, UK, pleased with the discovery said,
It’s a giant planet of similar basic structure to Jupiter, but bigger; it is about 1.3 times more massive than Jupiter and has approximately 1.5 to 1.8 times the radius.
It’s a lot closer to its star, which is quite similar to our Sun, and it orbits it every 1.5 days.
This finding proves that the instrumentation onboard the 650kg (1,400lb) satellite is sensitive enough to be able to detect rocky exo-planets — planets outside our Solar System - which are even just a few times bigger than Earth.
The instrument’s spotting the new planet so soon after the launch onboard, assures the scientists that they are working well enough to even be able to discover smaller, Earth-like planets.
Photo Credit: BBC News
