Mount Abu, in India, is the site where a new exoplanet has been sighted. HD 82139 is the name of the exciting new discovery. More than 700 light years distant from our Earth, HD 82139 is huge. It’s mass is equal to 1.5 times the size of our own yellow dwarf star/sun. Data shows that the parent star of HD 82139 is aged and that the orbiting exoplanet is far too close to it.
Although a great many exoplanets have been found and catalogued, only a couple of handfuls are so close to their parent stars. These super-heated exoplanets are often called hot Jupiters. HD 82139 is not the first exoplanet sighted on Mt Abu. The Physical Research Laboratory, a research institute supported by the Department of Space and the government of India, houses an optical fiber-fed spectrograph, the first in India.
With it, Indian scientists could measure the mass of an exoplanet. They were also able to ascertain furthermore that HD 82139 was speeding around it’s parental star in about three days and that it’s closeness was roughly parallel to one tenth of the distance between our own sun and Mercury. In 2018, Indian scientists also discovered K2-236b, which is approximately 600 light years away from Earth.
Key Takeaways:
- A study group at the Physical Research Laboratory found the planet, which is about 725 light years away.
- The planet is so close to its host star that its orbits take just 3.2 days.
- Previously in 2018, the group discovered a sub-Saturn size exoplanet 600 light-years away.
“Using PARAS, which has the capability to measure mass of an exoplanet, the exoplanet’s mass is found to be 70 per cent and size about 1.4 times that of the Jupiter, it said.”
References:
- Live Mint (Website)
- Prasar Bharati News Services (YouTube Channel)
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