Astronomers from Poland have discovered a new exoplanet that has 11 times the mass of Jupiter, making it one of the most massive known planets in the known Universe. It is a cold super-Jupiter, that is, colder and larger than Jupiter. Studies of this exoplanet and the star system in which it is located were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The system is located about 300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. The system’s main star, HD 118203, is more massive and larger than the Sun. Back in 2005, the TESS satellite discovered one of the planets in this system, a hot Jupiter twice the size of Earth.
Andrzej Niedzielski, an astronomer at Nicolaus Copernicus University, said, “Doppler observations, however, indicated that there might be another planet out there.” Using TESS data and measurements from the Galileo and Hobby-Eberly telescopes, the team found that another object was orbiting around the star. Although the exoplanet is not directly visible due to the brightness of the star, its presence was learned by analyzing the star’s radial velocity.
Compared to hot Jupiter, which has an orbit of six days, cold super-Jupiter has a much longer orbit of about 14 years. This confirms its belonging to the category of cold super-Jupiters.
Despite its large size, the exoplanet is inferior to other giants. For example, TrES-4b in the constellation Hercules, has a diameter of 230,000 km, which is larger than that of Jupiter, but the mass of the exoplanet is quite a bit smaller.
In general, the line between the most massive exoplanet and the least massive brown dwarf is not always clear. But this exoplanet with 11 times the mass of Jupiter is a truly impressive discovery.
Earlier we reported on how Earth and Jupiter were found to have incredible similarities.
According to gizmodo.com
