Bangalore. A study group from Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) has discovered a planet larger than Jupiter orbiting a star outside the solar system. Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) gave this information.
The discovery was made using the PRL Advanced Radial-Velocity Abu-Sky Search (PARAS) optical fiber-fed spectograph mounted on PRL’s 1.2-metre telescope at Mount Abu Observatory, ISRO said in a statement. The space agency said that the planet, located 725 light-years outside the solar system, has 1.4 times the mass of Jupiter. This measurement was done between December 2020 and March 2021. Later in April 2021, it was also measured through TCES spectrograph from Germany.
The said star is known as HD 82139, hence the planet will be known as TOI 1789b or HD82139b. The search team was led by Professor Abhijit Chakraborty. This newly discovered star-planet system is very unique – the planet orbits the host star in just 3.2 days. Thus placing it very close to the star at a distance of 0.05 AU (about a tenth of the distance between the Sun and Mercury).
Due to the planet’s close proximity to its host star, it appears in 2000 K. It is extremely hot with a surface temperature of up to , and therefore an inflated radius, making it one of the planets with the lowest density (density 0.31 g per cc) yet known. Outside the solar system, the first such planet to orbit a star, ‘K.2-236b’, was discovered 600 light-years away in 2018.
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