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An international team of astronomers has discovered a hot new exoplanet using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Reconnaissance (TESS) satellite.
The newly discovered alien world is almost twice the size of Jupiter and has an asymmetric orbit. Scientists published details of this discovery in a research paper published Aug. 25 in arXiv.
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So-called “hot Jupiters” have characteristics similar to those of the largest planet in the solar system, but have orbital periods of less than 10 days.
These exoplanets have high surface temperatures because they orbit closely with their mother stars.
Today, a group of astronomers led by Samuel HC Cabot of Yale University reported the discovery of a new such exoplanet, which has been shown to have a very high surface temperature. By observing in particular the bright star TOI-1518 with TESS, a transit signal was identified in the light curve of this object.
The planetary nature of this signal was confirmed by high-resolution tracking observations using the EXPRES spectrometer from the Lowell Discovery Telescope.
“We present the discovery of TOI-1518b, an ultra-hot Jupiter, orbiting a bright star. The planet in transit has been confirmed using the high-resolution optical transmission spectra of EXPRES,” wrote astronomers in the article.
The radius of TOI-1518b is approximately 1.875 the radius of Jupiter, while its mass is uncertain, and it is estimated that it does not exceed 2.3 the mass of Jupiter.
Tracking the future radial velocity of this system will provide more details on its mass. The planet orbits its host every 1.9 days, at a distance of about 0.04 AU.
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The study found that TOI-1518b has an equilibrium temperature of 2,492 K and a measured daytime light temperature of 3,237 K, indicating that it may exhibit thermal reflection.
However, more spectroscopic observations of this exoplanet are needed to confirm this.
According to the research document, TOI-1518b has a very asymmetric orbit, around 240.34 degrees.
In an attempt to explain this discovery, astronomers have noticed that gas giants usually close to each other around hot stars are asymmetrical. TOI-1518 has an effective temperature of about 7300 K, is about twice the size of the Sun, and has an estimated mass of 1.79 solar mass.
The study also detected the presence of iron (Fe) in the atmosphere of TOI-1518b. The team performed a cross-correlation analysis in the atmosphere and found the iron neutral. They pointed out that so far there have only been a few earlier findings of iron on super hot Jupiters.
Source: phys.org
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