SPACE
& SCIENCE NEWS: January 2003
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& science news > space & science news: January 2003
Record-breaking extrasolar planet
(Jan 8, 2003)
Astronomers have discovered the most distant known extrasolar
planet, a "hot Jupiter"-type world orbiting a star about 5,000
light-years away. It was detected photometrically, in other words
by dips in the light curve as the planet transits across the face
of its star, during a survey as part of the Optical
Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE). The planet, dubbed OGLE-TR-56b,
is only the second one that has been seen to pass in front of its
host star as seen from Earth. The first, HD
209458b, was detected in 1999. Astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics announced the discovery of OGLE-TR-56b at
a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle. A planetary
transit is a rare thing, requiring a precise alignment. But when it
does occur it enables many details about the planet to be discovered
than is possible by other means. OGLE uses a telescope in Chile to
monitor a crowded starfield in the direction of the galactic center.
Follow-up observations of candidate stars that appeared to dim as
a result of a planet were carried out from the Keck Observatory on
Mauna Kea, Hawaii. OGLE-TR-56b orbits its parent star every 29 hours,
closer than Mercury is to the Sun, and is about 2.6 times the size
of Jupiter, yet weighs slightly less, giving it a density similar
to Saturn. Two more OGLE candidates are also probably planets. |
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