Astronomers have discovered an incredibly odd planet that is enormous but has the density of cotton candy.
Enormous Exoplanet With Density of Cotton Candy
The exoplanet, dubbed WASP-193b, is considered the second-least dense exoplanet that has ever been discovered. Its density is equivalent to roughly 0.059 grams per cubic centimeter. This was noted in the "An extended low-density atmosphere around the Jupiter-sized planet WASP-193 b" study.
Such measurements make it seven times less dense than Jupiter despite its 50% larger size. The planet also has one percent of Earth's own density.
Julien de Witt, a co-author of the study and professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that the planet is extremely light, so it is hard to think of a solid-state and analogous material. The reason behind its affinity with cotton candy is that both are pretty much air. Basically, the planet is extremely fluffy.
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Bizarre Exoplanet
The planet is roughly 1,181 light-years away from Earth. It was discovered in 2023, thanks to the scientific collaboration project Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP), which involved using various observatories in the two hemispheres.
Astronomers observed that the WASP-193 star exhibited periodic brightness dips, which showed that a planet could be passing through its surface.
With such data, the researchers found that the planet is a gas giant roughly as big as the Sun. It orbits the star once every 6.2 days at approximately seven percent of the Earth-Sun distance.
It was also found that the planet's mass was equivalent to roughly 0.139 Jupiter. However, it was observed to be approximately 1.5 times its size, implying its remarkably low density. Jupiter's density is approximately 1.33 grams per cubic centimeter, as opposed to the 0.059 grams per cubic centimeter of WASP-193b. This makes the planet's density more akin to cotton candy.
Khalid Barkaoui, an exoplanet researcher from the EXOTIC Laboratory of the University of Liège, says that the planet's extremely low density makes it quite an anomaly among the thousands of exoplanets that have been discovered. Standard irradiated gas giant models cannot reproduce such low-density levels, even within a coreless structure's unrealistic assumptions.
With this, the scientists theorize that the planet could consist of helium and hydrogen, similar to other gas giants. However, its atmosphere could be further-reaching for reasons that remain unclear. In most cases, planets with such kinds of light atmospheres see the gases stripped by stellar winds.
Francisco Pozuelos, a co-author of the study and astronomer from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalusia, says that they do not know which formation theories the planet can fall under since it is an outlier and cannot explain its formation. Taking a deeper look into its atmosphere would enable them to constrain an evolutionary path for it.
The researchers hope to conduct further research to learn more about its formation and how it became incredibly low-density.
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