Three New Gas Giant Exoplanets Discovered

First Posted: Jan 20, 2017 03:20 AM EST
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The astronomers discovered three new gas giant exoplanets with the SuperWASP-South Observatory in South Africa. The two new exoplanets are named WASP-91 and WASP-105b and were classified as "warm Jupiters." Meanwhile, the other exoplanet is named WASP-107 and referred to as a super-Neptune or a sub-Saturn planet.

The findings of the discovery were printed on the arXiv preprint server on Jan. 13, 2017. The discovery was led by David Anderson of Keele University in the U.K. and other colleagues. The researchers stated that they present the discoveries of three transiting exoplanets by the WASP survey: WASP-91b and WASP-105b are warm Jupiters orbiting metal-rich, early/mid-K stars; and WASP-107b is a warm super-Neptune/sub-Saturn orbiting a solar-metallicity, late-K star, according to Phys.org.

In the study, WASP-91b has the same size like Jupiter. On the other hand, it is 34 percent more massive than the Solar System's biggest planet. It has an equilibrium temperature of 1,160 K. It also orbits its host star every 2.8 days.

Meanwhile, WASP-105b, which is another warm Jupiter, is almost the size of Jupiter that has a radius of about 0.96 Jupiter radii. It is bigger but cooler than WASP-91 and has a mass of about 1.8 Jupiter masses. Its equilibrium temperature is 900 K. It lies in the constellation Phoenix.

The WASP-107b, which is a warm-super Neptune, is much less massive than the two exoplanets. It has a 96 percent of Jupiter's size. On the other hand, it has a mass of only 12 percent of the mass of the Solar System's gas giant. It is also considered the coolest exoplanet newly discovered. It orbits its parent star in about 5.7 days.

Exoplanet is also referred to as the extrasolar planet. It is a planet that orbits a star other than the Sun. There are thousands of exoplanets that were discovered by the HARPS and Kepler space telescope since 2004. The nearest exoplanet that is discovered is the Proxima Centauri b, which is located 4.2 lightyears away from the planet Earth. It orbits the Proxima Centauri, which is the closest star to the Sun.

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