gas giant tagged posts

Saturn-sized exoplanet with Earth-like temperature reveals methane-rich atmosphere

Grey planet with host star in background
Artist’s impression of a gas giant planet orbiting its distant host star. New research, led by astronomers at Penn State and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to analyze the atmosphere of a gas giant planet about the size of Saturn but with Earth-like temperatures and found it to be rich in methane. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. All Rights Reserved.

A planet that is about the size of Saturn, but with a temperature more like Earth’s, has an atmosphere rich in methane, according to a new study using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Unlike the gas giant planets—Jupiter and Saturn—in Earth’s solar system, which are distant from the sun and therefore extremely cold, and so-called “hot Jupiters”—giant planets beyond the solar system that are s...

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Astronomers capture breathtaking first look at a planet being born

WISPIT2b, a gas giant forming around a young Sun-like star, has been directly imaged for the first time inside a spectacular multiringed disk. Still glowing and actively accreting gas, the planet offers a unique opportunity to study planetary birth and evolution.

An international team of astronomers, co-led by researchers at University of Galway, has made the unexpected discovery of a new planet.

Detected at an early stage of formation around a young analog of our own Sun, the planet is estimated to be about 5 million years-old and most likely a gas giant of similar size to Jupiter.

The study, which was led by Leiden University, University of Galway and University of Arizona, has been published in the international journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The ground-breaking...

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A Second Planet in the Beta Pictoris system

The disk of dust surrounding β Pictoris and the position of the planets β Pictoris b and c.
© P Rubini / AM Lagrange

A team of astronomers led by Anne-Marie Lagrange, a CNRS researcher at the Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble (CNRS/Université Grenoble Alpes)1, has discovered a second giant planet in orbit around b Pictoris, a star that is relatively young (23 million years old) and close (63.4 light years), and surrounded by a disk of dust.

The β Pictoris system has fascinated astronomers for the last thirty years since it enables them to observe a planetary system in the process of forming around its star...

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