Astronomers are shocked to discover

the cotton candy planet

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – A planet was discovered similar to cotton candy. WASP-193b is located 1,200 light years from Earth and is very large, reaching 50% of Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System.

“This planet is very light, so it is quite difficult to find analogous solid material,” said the lead author of the study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Khalid Barkaoui, quoted from CNN International , Friday (17/5/2024).

WASP-193b is the second light planet discovered so far. While the other number is Kepler 51-d, which is 100 times lighter than Jupiter.

Barkaoui explained that the planet is similar to cotton candy because it contains light gas. “Basically this planet is very smooth,” he said.

193-b’s mass is only 14% of Jupiter’s mass. However, it takes quite a long time to determine it.

Usually mass calculations use radial velocity techniques, which analyze how a star’s spectrum shifts as a planet orbits it. However, because it is so light, WASP-193b does not exert any attraction on the star.

It took the research team four years to collect data and calculate the mass. Because the number was so low, they also had to confirm it through several data analysis tests.

Even the very low density made researchers disbelieving. “Initially we got a very low density, which was hard to believe,” said another researcher from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalucia in Spain, Francisco Pozuelos.

Barkoui added that it is not yet clear how WASP-193b formed. The model for the evolution of gas giants is even said to be insufficient to explain this phenomenon.

“WASP-193b is the alien planet of all the planets discovered to date,” he concluded.

SOURCE : CNBC INDONESIA