Scientists Discover Largest-Known Planet
Pastor Dale Morgan
Aug 8, 7:32 PM EDT
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Scientists Discover Largest-Known Planet*
PHOENIX (AP) -- Scientists have discovered the universe's largest known
planet, a giant ball made of mostly hydrogen that is 20 times larger
than Earth and circling a star 1,400 light-years away.
Scientists believe the planet is 1.7 times the diameter of Jupiter, the
largest planet in our solar system, and has a temperature of 2,300-degrees.
"There is probably not a really firm surface anywhere on the planet. You
would sink into it," said Georgi Mandushev, a research scientist at
Lowell Observatory and lead author of an article announcing the finding
in the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Lowell, along with the California Institute of Technology's Palomar
Observatory in San Diego County and telescopes operating in Spain's
Canary Islands, discovered the planet circling a star in the
constellation Hercules.
Lowell announced the finding Monday. Scientists first spotted the new
planet, called TrES-4, and a smaller one in spring 2006. Scientists at
Caltech, Harvard University and the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii
later confirmed the discovery.
"It's very solid stuff," astronomer Alan Boss at the Carnegie
Institution of Washington said of the discovery of TrES-4. He marveled
at the planet's extremely low density, about half that of Saturn in our
solar system.
"It's just letting us know that nature has some surprises for us ... a
much wider range of possibility than we could imagine," Boss said.
He said scientists "can't understand why these so-called fluffy planets
are so fluffy. It really is a mystery, just how they can be so low-density."
Scientists also are working on the possibility of another planet in the
same constellation. "It's tough," Mandushev said. "We're not really sure
what's going on there. There might actually be another planet in this
field, which would be incredible."
The participating Lowell telescope is housed on top of Anderson Mesa,
about 15 miles south of Flagstaff.
Lowell is best known for the 1930 discovery of Pluto, which since has
been demoted from planet status.