A British team of astronomers from St Andrews University in Fife University in Staffordshire has discovered three planets, hotter and heavier than Jupiter! The planets are named Wasp-3b, Wasp-4b and Wasp-5b.
The scientists at Queen’s University in Belfast and Keele University in Staffordshire were also involved in the discovery. These planets, according to Professor Andrew Cameron of St. Andrews University, are ’surprisingly heavy’. These planets are gas planets like Jupiter but are much more hotter because they are around 50 percent closer to their respective parent stars.
It takes the planets less than two days to orbit around their parent stars, making their ‘year’ last for only two days. These planets are among the planets with shortest orbital periods.
The astronomers are suspecting that in is possible only for such heavy gaseous planets to survive in such close orbits around their parent stars.
The planets were discovered using specialist cameras in La Palma in the Canary Islands and Sutherland in South Africa. They conducted huge ‘mosaic sweeps’ of the night sky capturing images of millions of stars. The data was analyzed at the haute-Provence Observatory in France. The team was able to calculate the mass and temperature of the planets. The planets are 2000 degrees hotter making life impossible.
Source:daily mail
Image:astrowhatsup
