New Hot Jupiter Found; Astronomers Say the Discovery is Twice Larger Than the Gas Giant Planet

A new ultra-hot Jupiter was recently detected, and according to a new paper, it is almost double the size of the Gas Giant planet.

According to a Phys.org report, an international team of astronomers used the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS of NASA for their discovery.

These so-called "Hot Jupiters" have the same characteristics as the biggest planet in the solar system, although they have orbital periods shorter than 10 days. These exoplanets have high temperatures on the surface, as they are orbiting their parent stars so closely.

The team of astronomers, led by Yale University's Samuel Cabot, reports discovering a new exoplanet of this sort, which turns out to comprise an extremely high temperature on the surface.

The Newfound Exoplanet

The newfound exoplanet, which, as earlier mentioned, is twice bigger than Jupiter and has a misaligned orbit. The result is detailed in a paper posted on the arXiv pre-print repository.

While watching a bright star designated TOI-1518 with TESS, a transport indicator was identified in this object's light curve.

Such a signal's planetary nature was verified by follow-up high-resolution observations using EXPRES spectrograph at the Lowell Discovery Telescope.

In the paper, the researchers wrote they present the TOI-1518b's discovery, an ultra-hot Jupiter, orbiting a bright star. The study authors also wrote that the transiting planet is validated through the use of "high-resolution optical transmission spectra from EXPRES."

Temperatures Observed

Essentially, TOI-1518 has a radius of roughly 1.875 Jupiter radii. On the other hand, its mass is uncertain, approximated to not go beyond 2.3 Jupiter masses.

This system's future radial velocity monitoring will put more limitations on its mass. The planet is orbiting its host every 1.9 days, at an almost 0.04 AU distance from it.

The paper showed that TOI-1518b comprises a 2,492 K equilibrium temperature. More so, its measured dayside brightness temperature is 3,237 K, suggesting that it might show a thermal inversion.

Nonetheless, further observations from the spectrograph of this newly discovered exoplanet are needed to verify this.

2X Bigger Than the Sun

Based on the paper, TOI-1518b has an extremely misaligned orbit at approximately 240.34 degrees. In trying to explain this result, Astronomers noted that close-in giants around hot stars are generally misaligned.

The TOI-1518b has an impact temperature of roughly 7,300 K. It is also roughly twice bigger than the sun, and its mass is approximated to be at a 1.79 solar mass level.

A similar TechCodex report said this study also found iron in the atmosphere of TOI-1518b. The researchers performed an atmospheric cross-correlation analysis and detected neutral iron.

They underscored that there have just been a handful of past identifications of iron in ultra-hot Jupiters so far. The researchers said they looked for neutral and ionized Fe in the atmosphere of the companion through high-resolution transmission spectroscopy.

In addition, the scientists said they detected neutral iron at 157 kilometers per second, and 16 kilometers per second, adding another object to the tiny sample of highly irradiated gas-giant planets with iron detections in transmission.

Related information about the ultra-hot Jupiter is shown on Your Morning's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on Space in Science Times.