Astronomers find distant, fluffy planet

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WASHINGTON - The largest planet ever found orbiting another star is so puffy it would float on water, astronomers said Thursday. The newly discovered planet, dubbed HAT-P-1, is both the largest and least dense of the nearly 200 worlds astronomers have found outside our own solar system.

 

HAT-P-1 orbits one of a pair of stars in the constellation Lacerta, about 450 light-years from Earth.

 

"This new planet, if you could imagine putting it in a cosmic water glass, it would float," said Robert Noyes, a research astrophysicist with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. The planet, a gas giant, is probably a puffed up ball of hydrogen and helium.

 

HAT-P-1 is an oddball planet, since it orbits its parent star at just one-twentieth of the distance that separates Earth from our own sun. While Earth takes a year to orbit the sun, the newly found planet whips around its star once every 4.5 days.

 

Astronomers believe HAT-P-1 may belong to an entirely new class of planets, along with a second, smaller distant world that's also puffier than theories would have predicted, Noyes said.

 

Astronomers used a network of telescopes in Arizona and Hawaii to discover the planet. Its parent star is too faint to see with the naked eye but can be spied with binoculars.

 

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On the Net:

 

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/

 

Πηγή: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060914/ap_on_sc/puffy_planet

[ΠΑΠΑΣΩΤΗΡΙΟΥ ΛΕΩΝ]

Και ο Κρονος θα επεπλεε,αφου το ειδικο βαρος του ειναι λιγοτερο του νερου.Φαινεται ο νεος αυτος πλανητης να ειναι στα ορια του καφε νανου(μεχρι 10 φορες ο Διας),ωστε να χαρακτηριζεται πλανητης,αφου πλανητες με πολλαπλασιο ογκο του Δια εχουμε ανακαλυψει και παλαιοτερα.