Um planeta semelhante a algodão doce
This cotton candy planet isn't alone; there are other similar planets belonging to 8️⃣ a class scientists facetiously call "puffy Jupiters." The lightest planet ever discovered is the superpuffy Kepler 51d, which is nearly 8️⃣ the size of Jupiter but a hundred times lighter than the gas giant.
Puffy Jupiters have largely been a mystery for 8️⃣ 15 years, said lead study author Khalid Barkaoui. But WASP-193b, because of its size, is an ideal candidate for further 8️⃣ analysis by the James Webb Space Telescope and other observatories.
"The planet is so light that it's difficult to think of 8️⃣ an analogous, solid-state material," said Barkaoui, a postdoctoral researcher of Earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of 8️⃣ Technology, in a news release. "The reason why it's close to cotton candy is because both are mostly made of 8️⃣ light gases rather than solids. The planet is basically super fluffy."
WASP-193b, which researchers think is made up of mostly hydrogen 8️⃣ and helium, was a huge puzzle for researchers to piece together. Because the exoplanet's density is so light for its 8️⃣ size, calculating its mass became a challenge.
Desafio roulette site calcular a massa do planeta
Usually, scientists determine mass using a technique called 8️⃣ radial velocity, in which researchers analyze how a star's spectrum, a graph that indicates the intensity of light emissions in 8️⃣ wavelengths, shifts as a planet orbits it. The bigger the planet, the more the star's spectrum can shift - but 8️⃣ this didn't work for WASP-193b, which is so light, it didn't make any pull on the star that the team 8️⃣ could detect.
Because of how small the mass signal was, it took the team four years to gather data and calculate 8️⃣ WASP-193b's mass, Barkaoui explained. Because the extremely low numbers they found were so rare, the researchers completed multiple trials of 8️⃣ data analysis, just to be sure.
"We were initially getting extremely low densities, which were very difficult to believe in the 8️⃣ beginning," said co-lead author Francisco Pozuelos, a senior researcher at Spain's Institute of Astrophysics of Andalucia, in a news release.
Eventually 8️⃣ the team discovered the planet's mass is a measly 14% that of Jupiter, despite being so much bigger.
Um planeta com 8️⃣ uma atmosfera ext ```python endedora
But a bigger size means a bigger "extended atmosphere," said study coauthor Julien de Wit, an associate professor 8️⃣ of planetary science at MIT. That means WASP-193b provides an especially useful window into these puffy planets' formation.
"The bigger a 8️⃣ planet's atmosphere, the more light can go through," de Wit told roulette site . "So it's clear that this planet 8️⃣ is one of the best targets we have for studying atmospheric effects. It will be a Rosetta Stone to try 8️⃣ and resolve the mystery of puffy Jupiters."
But it's also not clear how WASP-193b even formed, Barkaoui said. The "classical evolution 8️⃣ models" of gas giants don't quite explain the phenomenon.
"WASP-193b is an outlier of all planets discovered to date," he said.
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